Spring Clean Competition Details | How To Enter, Prizes & Deadlines

Hey obones , others have said it just as well as I could, but I thought I would add a quick comment as the competition organiser 

Although the competition is themed around about finishing a project you previously started, each project will be unique. What progress, completion or being partially/fully functional look like could be very different.

The element14 team and myself completely understand that projects don't always go as planned, either because of technical challenges or because life happens. A complete project doesn't guarantee a prize and an incomplete project does not guarantee you will not receive a prize.

Share your progress and your thinking, your successes and difficulties, all the photos and videos that seem appropriate. Hopefully the journey has its own rewards but there is a good number of prizes available and there are other ways that projects can be recognized and celebrated.

As part of the Boy Scouts Robotics Merit badge, projects and their development needed to be recorded in an engineering log, similar to the way an engineer may be asked to show proof of invention and intellectual property in a dated notebook.   

These E14 projects dont need the documentation rigor but I actually dokeep a notebook of my calcs, data taking, and thought evolution, and a printout of schematics and final code. My project videos are all posted on You Tube as well. Some completed projects have been around the house for 10 years plus -- because half of them get reworked and updated occasionally for Halloween or STEM events at school or the library. I need the notes to remember what I did and what the final software file name is , so I can find it.    :-)    I do reuse prior designs and software when possible, saves a bunch of time on the re learning curve.  

Thanks, it clarifies a lot the process.

I totally understand that there is the (high) possibility that I'm not chosen as a winner, it already happened in the previous challenge I took part in. And to be honest, it was totally obvious why the winning entries were much better than mine that time around.

I'll try my best and document the process along the way, at the very least it will allow me to lay out the journey to get there and offer me a way to come back to it in the future. And if it gives other people some insights, all the better.

First and foremost, often there are more entries than prizes, so not everyone will be winners, unless the E14 team decides to send swag to all participants, which they sometimes do unannounced when there are alot of really good projects.

Projects are not all measured strictly by success and technical difficulty.Your project may partially work, but a finished project may take more time or $$$ than you had originally budgeted. Life happens. Share that in your write up. I've also seen where entire projects get blown up but a dumb mistake and there is no time left for more parts. Submit what you have. This is for fun. 

Your project is a unique story of a journey.

Share that journey:  challenges, breakthroughs, roadblocks, re-directs & spec/functionality changes.  Projects don't always finish with what they initially started out to do. 

A creative project and story that shows imagination and some effort goes a long way towards competing with the big dogs. 

In past Project14 contests, there have been winners that did not have a complete and functional project (I know this from personal experience).  Complete all the steps, with an interesting project and explain your failure and potential fixes and/or solutions in your video(s) and photograph(s).  If the judges feel that you have accomplished more than the other competitors, you could win.

There is a lot to learn from failures.  Even a completed project can is no guarantee of winning. So, do your best and hope that you are competitive with the other competitors!