Project14 | The 2020 Year in Review:  Decider, Founder, and Influencer of the Year!

Year in Review

element14 presents | Design Challenge | Project14 Decider | Project14 Founder | Project14 Influencer | Rising Contributor | RoadTest | RoadTesters 2020 | Webinars 2020 Review | Winners Announced | Members

The year began full of light and reverberating sound, with the launch of the  Acoustics competition followed by the  Photonics.   Two really great themes that offered a lot of interesting possibilities for projects.    Behind the scenes we were already thinking about the 3rd Birthday of Project14, as we did in previous years, we were going to celebrate the birth of the Project14 program by celebrating the birth of Arduino.   We started things off with an Arduino Nano Giveaway (Arduino Day 2020: NanoRama: We're Giving Away Different Nano Boards for Projects that Use Them! ),  a quiz (Arduino Fundamentals: Part I: Quiz), and finally a NanoRama competition which we moved up to coincide with Arduino Day.  As we progressed through March, the news became increasingly troublesome.  The lockdown had closed down the UK offices but even as that was happening with our colleagues across the pond, it felt like their worries were an ocean away.   My last full week in our downtown Chicago office,   we were doing everything we could to launch the Restoration & Repair competition, and preparing for the very real possibility that anything else that needed to be done or launched, would need to done remotely.  The possibility we would not be coming back to the office became a reality on March 16th, 2020, the day the city of Chicago went under lockdown.  That day,  on the very last day of the Acoustics competition,  redcharly posted Relaxing sounds of nature where he writes:

Hi, these are terrible days, in Italy we have been locked in the house for days to avoid the spread of Coronavirus.  What's better than designing and building something with Arduino? - redcharly

Three days later we launched the Fighting Germs competitions, inspired by post by Re: Projects That Fight Germs  by 14rhb.   The third birthday celebration of Project14 would take a bit of a back seat, and the echo of Fighting Germs would reverberate throughout the year.  Because we launched the NanoRama competition early to coincide with Arduino Day,  we launched what would have likely been the April theme early.   Fighting Germs ,  another would be launched in April theme (it was leading the monthly theme poll) became another would be April launch that launched early.  April 2020 would became the first month since the first Project14 program began, that a month went by where we didn't launch a competition.

We returned to our regularly scheduled program in May with Hardware Hacking .   The Grand Prize Winner of the Hardware Hacking Competition was Radio Magic .   It would be featured along with The Pi Rotary (the Grand Prize Winner in the Acoustics competition) in a 3 part workshop called Vintage Upcycling with Raspberry Pi or Arduino Workshop (Zero to Hero) Series.   The Presenter of the workshop, balearicdynamics, would publish a collection of his upcycling projects in a book you can buy on Amazon and download a sample of by visiting   "Vintage Upcycling With Raspberry Pi and Arduino" & The Vintage Upcycling Winners .   The 3 part workshop,  not to mention the Grand Prize winning Project14 projects, were also the inspiration behind the Recycle & Retrofit competition which we held following that 3 part workshop. Another highlight of 2020 was the Electronic Art which was inspired by fmilburn and his Screaming LM386:  An Audio Amplifier with PCB Art which also traced back to the Acoustics competition earlier in the year.  jw0752 stole the show during the Electronic Art competition with his  A Do Nothing Machine - Electronic Sculpture - The Thinker Revisited and Exploded View .    Not only that he donated half his shopping cart winnings to another member,  once again demonstrating the heart and generosity of our community members.   Rounding out the rest of the competitions were Proving Science ,  Control Systems ,   Sensors ,  Making Time ,  and the Holiday Special 20 .   Each competition was special.  Each competition had its own stories.

Thank you for all the members who stuck with us through thick and thin.    These awards are a small smattering of the work members accomplished to make this program possible.

Without further ado here are the 2020 Member awards for Project14.....

2020 Decider of the Year

For outstanding contribution as a a Project14 community judge,   on this day we recognize:

Decider

Congratulations to genebren! You are the 2020 Decider of the Year!

genebren

Thank you. It has been an honor and a privilege to participate in many of the project14 competitions in a variety of ways.  The real heroes have been the element14 staff and tariq.ahmad  without whom, none of this could have happened.

 

Thanks again. -  genebren

2020 Founder of the Year

Founder

The winner for outstanding ideas that led to Project14 competitions is........

Congratulations to neuromodulator !  You are the 2020 Founder of the Year!

neuromodulator

Thank you for the recognition, I'm glad people found my P14 proposals interesting! -   neuromodulator

You can vote for themes and come up with ideas for future competitions in  Project14 | You Decide the Next Monthly Project Competition!

2020 Influencer of the Year

The winner for the most influential project contributions goes to....

Influencer

Congratulations to fmilburn! You are the 2020 Influencer of the Year!

fmilburn

This is totally unexpected.  Project14 is such a great program and it is an honor to be recognized.   I feel like I get much more than I give so I don't know what else to say except thank you! -  fmilburn

Thank you for your support of Project14.