What Changes Would You Like to See Made to Project14?

Thanks fmilburn , this is great feedback.  Your projects are so classic and I look forward to them eagerly each month.   Your recent entry,  Cat Commander iot Clock and Kibble Dispenser put a smile on my face.   I was thinking if I ever did a project and posted it on the community, an automated cat feeder would be a good place to start.   Unfortunately,  my cat adamantly refuses to eat anything but wet food!

>> I think monthly is about right.   It is probably more work for you but I find all of the Project14 contests interesting, even the ones I don't enter and I always look for Project14 first when I log on.

This is something I absolutely would not want to lose.  Back to topic of shifting.  Could we launch a theme every month and have a project competition launch a month later?   Maybe we can encourage people to post a part of what they are working on,  so others can learn from them, and then post a full blown project when the theme launches?  Wouldn't change the format and you could simply just post whatever you want,  in your own personal blogs or anywhere in the community.

>> Something similar to do that could also be to maybe have some of those shorter projects which would be aimed more towards hand tools. By that, I mean projects that don't use 3D printers, CNC machines and laser cutters for example, since these are machines that can really help with projects, but not everyone has access to them.

>> Another idea for shorter contest would maybe be to have a weekend style contest, since most people are off work then, where the theme can be presented on a livestream on Friday, where people could ask questions about that theme and people would have until Sunday to post a blog on the given theme.

>> I like Nico's idea for quick projects.  Several Element14 members like John Wiltrout, Jan Cumps and Jon Clift have published quick projects that are educational and interesting.  Example projects might be make something with a 555 timer, build a useful circuit with no more than x components, demonstrate how a certain active component works, those sorts of things.  I'm not sure how much general interest there would be though.

These are excellent suggestions!  I am adding these to the list as well.  I love those style of projects and if we keep this even more open,  maybe that can be tied into a workshop and the workshop can include an exercise that is simple in nature.

>> I think the prizes are a great size for Project14 and the value shouldn't change, but I think to get more people involved, specially who aren't a lot on the site, an addition of a gadget or something like that to the grand prize would draw more members to participate.

I was definitely wondering about that.   My impression was that $100 shopping cart pays for your next project and that $200 allows can be applied to something nice such as test equipment.   The only head scratcher I have is that there wasn't more participation with the Holiday Special this year, even with those bigger prizes.

>> How to get more people entering - the quality of the winning entries is frequently quite high in my opinion.  Maybe that is discouraging but high quality isn't bad.  Maybe do an analysis of what projects have generated the most entries.  I was surprised there weren't more entries in the holiday contest this last year as there were great prizes and the theme was not restrictive.

As a content person I am with you on wanting to see high quality content.   However,  maybe there are activities that we can do to encourage entries that encourage people to do something simpler.  Maybe post things they are doing as a comment or a blog post anywhere in the community.   Definitely want to keep things inclusive by nature at the same time,  want it to be a place where people learn by doing.

>> I don't know about prize size.  For me at least the prizes are recognition and the real reward is learning and applying new skills.  Giveaways beforehand might work for some.  What about the grand prize winner being able to award some amount to one of the entries that didn't win like is done for the holiday winners?

This has occurred outside the Holiday competition and something we want to encourage.   This is interesting and something I will add to the list as well.

>> How to make it more fun?  How about a badge for the best title, most educational, or the project that brings the most joy that month regardless of the theme.  Maybe it could change from month to month and be announced beforehand and have a prize.

This is great.  I think the badges need to be revisited and I'll work with our community manager on this in the near future.  It might be time to upgrade the way these are handled. :-)

Thanks  milosrasic98 ,

>>I have always been impressed by the consistent quality of your projects and the videos you submit are great!     It would be great to see your projects.  Maybe we do something like Makevember again this year where we encourage people to revisit past themes.   This was one of the reasons we did it a couple of years ago.   Giving members an opportunity to revisit past themes they did not get a chance to participate in before.

>> I like the monthly new theme format, but I like when there is a special Project14 theme like the Month of Robots Project14 or something like that. I think those are great and push all of the people participating to make bigger and more complex projects.

This is part of the difficult thing we need to solve so this is good feedback.  I like having those special themes but I don't know how they'll fit if a shift is going to occur.    Would like to do some activity around Arduino Day,  really looking past that at this point, but something will need to consider is what to do about the special events.

>>On the other side, I would like to see more relaxed themes as well. As ntewinkel mentioned, putting a cap on building a project for a given theme with a max budget of 10$, a lot more people would be confident to participate I think and the creativity would go higher when you have to make it work for only 10$.Something similar to do that could also be to maybe have some of those shorter projects which would be aimed more towards hand tools. By that, I mean projects that don't use 3D printers, CNC machines and laser cutters for example, since these are machines that can really help with projects, but not everyone has access to them.

Another idea for shorter contest would maybe be to have a weekend style contest, since most people are off work then, where the theme can be presented on a livestream on Friday, where people could ask questions about that theme and people would have until Sunday to post a blog on the given theme.

These are all excellent suggestions and will be looking to merge something similar with the feedback we've received.   Seems to be some interest related to that. 

I particularly am intrigued with the idea of a regularly occurring livestream of some sort.   This opens up new possibilities that are worth exploring and could offer something to look forward if we shift things around.  

>> I think the prizes are a great size for Project14 and the value shouldn't change, but I think to get more people involved, specially who aren't a lot on the site, an addition of a gadget or something like that to the grand prize would draw more members to participate.

I was definitely wondering about that.   My impression was that $100 shopping cart pays for your next project and that $200 allows can be applied to something nice such as test equipment.   The only head scratcher I have is that there wasn't more participation with the Holiday Special this year, even with those bigger prizes.

I like to add product if its related to the theme but generally like to keep things to things we sell in our stores.   For example ,  energy harvesting kit for when we did an energy harvesting contest.   Shifting some things would allow us to get a hold of the the product and we could even tie it in with some kind of workshop.   Some of these topics are so big that they lend themselves naturally to other activities.

>>I like your idea about workshops around existing projects done by members. I think it would be fun to see what would people make based on someone's project, to see their take and unique perspective while still following a rough guideline.

I think workshops is definitely something I would like to see moving forward.   We've done workshops around builds as well as show & tells.    It is something we will have more of this year and makes sense with Project14.  

:-)

>>Back to topic of shifting.  Could we launch a theme every month and have a project competition launch a month later?   Maybe we can encourage people to post a part of what they are working on,  so others can learn from them, and then post a full blown project when the theme launches?  Wouldn't change the format and you could simply just post whatever you want,  in your own personal blogs or anywhere in the community.

I have conflicting thoughts on this and have done both partial posts and waited for completion in the past.  I recently have gravitated to completion before posting except for complicated projects.  I can easily go either way though.

>>Something similar to do that could also be to maybe have some of those shorter projects which would be aimed more towards hand tools. By that, I mean projects that don't use 3D printers, CNC machines and laser cutters for example, since these are machines that can really help with projects, but not everyone has access to them.

I can definitely see where access to some tools could be an issue.  Placing a restriction on a subset of the contests could encourage participation for some. I am all for some contests that have an abbreviated educational bent.

>>Tariq pondered:

>>The only head scratcher I have is that there wasn't more participation with the Holiday Special this year, even with those bigger prizes.

I too would have thought the lockdown would be giving people far more hobby time.

In my case, instead of working on fun tech projects I ended up spending most of my holidays waist-deep in mud fixing perimeter drains around our reno house

tariq.ahmad  Awesome that you're looking at this.  I won't pile on much.  I agree on the format, timeline, etc.  For me, it's my fault that I didn't complete (or start) the projects that I wanted to participate in.

I'd like to propose that a couple of times a year, we know the theme an additional month in advance.  Don't extend the timeline.  Just provide the vision and open up the comments.  One of my biggest challenges is inspiration.  What kind of project could I do around the theme?     Part of the magic of Project14 is seeing the creativity of the community.  It's incredible.

I am 100% in support of ntewinkel's "I Built It!" idea.  Inspiration?  Jan Cumps A Crystal Clock with 1 Transistor - the Pierce Oscillator .  Not that Jan needs any points...   But there is still bragging rights.

At the risk of sounding petty with a rookie question... Can winners hold off on redeeming their awarded shopping cart and save up for cooler stuff?  If someone really wanted a 3D printer and winning a few Project14's got them closer to that goal, maybe that would increase their participation.  The bad news is that someone has to manage that.  Sorry.

Of course, we could all use dwinhold's (Modified) Work Clock  and we'd have all the time we need to complete our projects.

The key is to suggest Project14 themes so your projects can be entered under a suitable theme.

Hi kmikemoo ,

This all good feedback.  This helps me understand what is working and what could use improvement.

>>I'd like to propose that a couple of times a year, we know the theme an additional month in advance.

The theme is actually decided at the end of the month and launched a couple months later.   We know that the theme scheduled to launch in February is Digital Fever.   What I'm wondering is if there should be some in-between activity to generate ideas before the competition launches. I think the only tradeoff is timeliness.  For example,  a lot of the theme suggestions relate to a specific time of the year such as you might want to do a gardening project in the spring and if its closer to winter then it wouldn't be terribly interesting.   

>> At the risk of sounding petty with a rookie question... Can winners hold off on redeeming their awarded shopping cart and save up for cooler stuff?  If someone really wanted a 3D printer and winning a few Project14's got them closer to that goal, maybe that would increase their participation.  The bad news is that someone has to manage that.

That is not a rookie question at all.   I still get asked that question a lot.  Sometimes there are extenuating circumstances, such as a problem on our end, but in order to maintain our budget the prizes are separate and can not be combined. 

I'm going to propose a not-change .

What I find attractive with P14 is that it is lightweight for the participants.

It's very easy to join and projects can be small.

And no restrictions or mandatory components.

I see P14 as a little island of freedom where creativiy can thrive.

ntewinkel  wrote:

>>The only head scratcher I have is that there wasn't more participation with the Holiday Special this year, even with those bigger prizes.

I too would have thought the lockdown would be giving people far more hobby time.

In my case, instead of working on fun tech projects I ended up spending most of my holidays waist-deep in mud fixing perimeter drains around our reno house

I managed to get an entry in the Holiday Special, but I was also having to deal with drain problems. Unfortunately it wasn't just mud that I was having to deal with.   And I managed to put my back out doing it too.

It's great that you're looking to tweak and improve things, but I'd also like to echo the sentiment that it's pretty good as it is and there's nothing that really needs changing.

I do like the idea of the occasional simpler Project14 that might encourage a new contributor. You do see some nice entries by those just getting their feet wet, but something like Nico's suggestion of a $10 limit, etc. might help. If a newbie knows that everyone's entry will be simple then they might not feel worried about entering.