Project14 | Quick Update on Upcoming Competitions + What Would You Like To See Happen In Project14?

If you stick to more general themes rather than specific technologies, then you should already be halfway there as each participant can then interpret the theme in their own way and then decide on what level of complexity to aim for and be able to use what materials and knowledge they have available. This should appeal to new members at all experience levels.

Some may be put off by the competition who often aim higher but the Jumbo LED project shows that even a simple idea presented well can still win.

Taking a slightly different approach, then I can see some potential in trying to link some of the Learning Circuit/DC to Daylight type educational content to projects. Take what you have just learnt, turn it into a project and then post a blog about it (similar to a Project14 entry). This can work both ways as the existing learning content could also benefit by being supplemented by links to example projects relating to the subject material having just been covered. (There is also further potential for linking with STEM areas to create more structured didactic material and to the shop for supply of components used.) This could appeal to those at more entry levels without excluding more experienced members from participation.

I could see a whole new forum category for educational themes. Members would be challenged to create an educational blog. Like how to solder, or how to use KiCad, or how does a PLL work, or what is a diac, etc.

I'm not sure what would be a suitable motivator for such blogs, but any blog that exceeds some threshold of quality or popularity should be rewarded.

One thing I really enjoyed and found helpful was the ARDX set of Arduino tutorials that step through the very basics of Arduino. Like blink an LED, switch a relay, read a button, read a light sensor, etc.

element14 could possibly start assembling similar tutorials for various boards by hosting competitions that require the participants to explain a very basic concept in a short tutorial form, and then add their own project as an example. If multiple people choose to cover the same topic then that’s ok too, we end up with several tutorials beginners can reference and several examples of projects showing that concept in real use.

I realize that the “basics” of some boards may be more complicated, but then that makes the tutorials even more helpful for beginners.

And, of course, this can apply to intermediate and advanced concepts too, like how to make the board sleep to conserve energy, how to use interrupts, how to use various cores of a processor, etc.

Karen and Derek have been doing educational blogs over on element14 Presents for quite some time as part of the VCP programme. Amongst others, there was also the likes of the Fundamentals of Soldering series and Shabaz did a nice KiCad 6 Unofficial Quick Start blog a while back. (Trouble with software blogs though is that the need frequent updating to keep current with version changes). So, some groundwork already done.

It would be interesting to see more of that material being linked to member projects. See what people can come up with.

That ARDX sounds similar to the Jeremy Blum Arduino tutorial series which element14 published a long time ago:

/products/arduino/arduino-tutorials/b/blog/posts/jeremy-blum-arduino-tutorials

video tutorials , like Jeremy has there, are actually a lot better. Ardx was like a little booklet. Text can be quicker but videos are likely to be easier to understand.

 I was thinking of each specific board having a tutorial area. That will be helpful to support new boards as they are released. I wouldn’t expect full video tutorials to be something that gets created by members though, just quick text steps.

I haven’t been looking closely enough, so maybe that’s already been done. If not, maybe e14 just needs a summer student or employee to bring it all into focus in neat little online packages.

ntewinkel said:

Text can be quicker but videos are likely to be easier to understand.

I think both have their strengths if they are used in the right places.

I'm currently working my way through a tutorial series which has:

• a video overview of the feature being discussed
• a PDF of a follow-up hands-on task to be completed related to that feature
• a video of the task being completed

(There is an additional challenge here in that the tutorials are for a previous version of the software and a number of things have changed in the user interface since then, so you have to spend time figuring out the new way.)

The tutorials haven't been written/spoken by a native speaker so at times I find you have to alternate between the two to figure out some of the detail required. also some of the example content used in the tutorial isn't available for download, so the video version can be useful for getting a rough idea of what you need to improvise with whereas the text version just says to add a specific file without any further information about it.

Videos have the advantage to be able to quickly talk around a subject ad-hoc with a quick demonstration to clarify which otherwise could become very wordy in a text document.

ntewinkel said:

I was thinking of each specific board having a tutorial area.

There are a lot of boards out there these days but I guess you just need to have the structure that allows a new board as someone is prepared to create content for it, rather than attempting to cover them all.

One of the issues is keeping the content up to date. Just as the tutorial is completed for the current version then an update is usually about to be released. You then need two new tutorials, one highlighting what's changed since the last tutorial and then an updated one for the new version for those people joining at the new version.

Your earlier comment of: 

ntewinkel said:

several examples of projects showing that concept in real use.

is in-line with what I was thinking, it is perhaps what is missing and perhaps is a way for more participation in Project 14. 

ntewinkel said:

so maybe that’s already been done

I recall that there was a bit of a site clean-up a while back to prune back the site tree a bit where different platforms were involve but I guess a well structured tutorials area could be allowed to branch a bit more.

Even books have DLC nowadays! 

Project 14 is great I like it alot Great people I know over here

I kinda hate how true that is in this case