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Project14: Monthly Project Competitions About You!

Electronics & Design Projects

Enter Your Electronics & Design Project to earn a $100 Shopping Cart to any element14 transactional site!

Back to The Project14 homepage

Project14 Home
Monthly Themes
Monthly Theme Poll

 

 

Taking the First Steps

 

Project14 is a monthly project competition from element14. There are no applications to fill out so competition is open to all community members who want to participate! You won't be given any required kits to use so you must choose what components work best for your project and demonstrate your project using video proof.

 

 

What is Project14

  • A monthly design competition where community members decide themes to do projects around.
  • Open to all community members who want to participate.
  • Every month there is a new project theme poll where you get a chance to also submit ideas and images for future project competitions.
  • Project14 Project Competitions are always happening on the community.
  • Video is used to inspire creativity and encourage learning.

 

Who Is It for?

  • Project14 is inclusive to all community members
    • Regular project competitions are a way for novices, experts, and everyone in between to learn from one another and share the journey of taking ideas and turning them into projects
    • Themes are general so you can choose to do a project however you want regardless of skill set.
    • If you are less experienced but looking to try your hand in projects this is a great way to get your feet wet.
      • You have the support of a community willing to help and peers to mentor you along your journey.
    • Those with more experienced will perhaps have less of a learning curve and offer more complete projects
      • You can use your expertise to demonstrate what's possible for others.
      • If you see someone struggling with their project you are in a position to use your expertise to help others.

Your Ideas

 

Every month you'll have a new poll where you'll get to decide an upcoming project competition, based on your interests, that will take place a couple of months in advance. Themes are broad in scope so that everyone can participate regardless of skill set.

 

What are Monthly Themes?

  • Every month (around the 14th of each month) a new theme will be posted on Project14.
  • Submit your ideas (proposals) for your projects to get feedback from the rest of the community.
  • Submit a project entry in the Theme space once you start working on it.

 

What are Monthly Theme Polls?

  • Every month (around the 14th of each month) there is a project theme poll.
  • Vote on which project competition you want to see for the following upcoming theme.
    • The themes voted on during the previous poll decided the upcoming theme.
    • If you submit an idea for a theme that is not used then it can still be used in a future poll.
  • Themes comments and ideas from the comments section of the project theme poll.

 

How do you get your theme voted on in a Project Theme Poll?

  • Submit images and ideas for design projects in the comments section of the poll.
  • If you see your idea or images used in a poll you'll earn a free element14 swag reward! 

 

Your Projects

 

By opening this competition to as broad an audience as possible, this can be a place that brings together novices, experts, and everyone in between to learn from and share the journey of taking ideas and turning them into projects. Rewards are given for top projects and ideas so you'll experience the fun of competition while keeping things light hearted.

 

How do you submit a Project entry for a Project Theme?

  • Visit the Project14  homepage or the Project Themes to see which project competitions are currently active.
  • Step 1:Login or register on element14, it's easy and it's free
  • Step 2: View the theme document under "theme" and discuss ideas in the comments below.
    • Videos, pictures, and text are welcomed forms for discussing your ideas.
  • Step 3: Click on Share an Entry in the theme space to share a blog entry of your progress and engage with other Community members!
    • You can update your entry as you go along and ask for help in the comments section of your post.
    • You are allowed to submit as many entries as you want but it's simpler to update your post as you go along.

 

How do you fill out a Project Entry?

 

Project submissions are loosely structured.

 

You are only required to submit one project entry that meets the following criteria:

 

  • Come up with a Clever Name
    • A clever name can make your project memorable.
    • The right name can distinguish your project from others and help create buzz around your project.
    • This project is your baby! Part of the fun of bringing something new into the world is coming up with a name.
  • Stick to the Theme
    • If you have an idea for a project that doesn't fit the current theme then submit your idea in the comments section of the monthly poll.
  • Be Original
    • Providing the steps you took to complete your project (text, video, or images) and providing video proof should be sufficient in most cases.
    • If your project introduces something new or something that is not commercially available or affordable then that counts!
  • Submit Video Proof
    • If it doesn't work that's fine, this program is more about the journey than the end product.
    • A short video is all that is required but you can shoot as much video as you like.
    • You are encouraged to be creative and have as much fun as possible!

 

Sharing the Journey

 

Community members can volunteer to help judge project submissions.

 

How do you volunteer to judge?

 

You're under no obligation to vote for the best project, the guidelines are loosely structured but are designed to encourage complete project submissions (with steps and video proof), and we want this program to be something that everyone in the community can participate to post smaller projects that fit within a theme (a theme the members pick in a monthly poll) .

 

Keep this a by members, for members program by volunteering to judge!

 

If you're interested in picking the 3 First Place Winners contact or to clear up any questions on eligible entries for each competition.

Anonymous

  • Great idea!!!, this is a better way to enhance investigation and research skills.....

  • in reply to jkutzsch

    Thanks John, once I've got the optical sensor hooked up to the Edison I'll be more confident that the Furby is "hackable". But they do seem to be very well engineered.

  • in reply to Workshopshed

    "Ideally", if addressed before it happens there could be rules laid out to understand what is not allowed or what is.  Honestly, there are so many cool projects that I have seen provided by the members from the past to the present that I could understand some people re-using some.  But if addressed now and deemed inappropriate, it saves us pain later.  :-)

     

    Loving your blogs , especially the Furby part.  We have a couple laying around here somewhere I believe but I think I would be attacked by my kids if I tried to scrap them.  :-)

  • in reply to jkutzsch

    Hey you are right my project does match the techno toys theme, but I won't be entering it.

     

    Fundamentally upcycling starts with a object so it's kind of the same as the issue you describe. The idea is to judge the improvements not the original.

     

    So same for Project14, it's not judging the original project but the steps taken in the month.

     

    But it would be possible to rehash / document an existing project and make it look like you did it that month if someone was trying to abuse the system.

  • in reply to tariq.ahmad

      Thank you for the information. 

     

    Many times I will ask a question out of curiosity and from what I see as a potential "issue" in the future.  For instance I personally don't have anything like I what I asked about for this challenge but while looking through cool UpCycle It project [Upcycle It] Interactive Race Car Driver - Plan of action I had thought, hmm.  That would work with the current Project14 challenge.  I wonder if people can submit the same project to multiple challenges or even recycle old projects that are cool.  :-)

     

    My personal take on Project14 is that each challenge should have a new and unused project ran for it.  Or at least something that had not previously been submitted for something other.  But clarification now is much easier then worrying about it later.  :-)

  • in reply to fvan

    NERVOUS ???

     

    I am no nervous

  • in reply to jkutzsch

    Hey ,

     

    That's a good question.   There's nothing in the rules that say it has to be a new project or that an existing project can't be reused.

     

    As far as judging goes the criteria are:

    • originality - something that doesn't exist anywhere on the internet
    • steps - how well did you document the process (multiple blog entries  is one way to allow us to follow along with the journey of taking an idea and turning it into a project)
    • video proof that it worked - video and images make things easier to follow
    • how well it sticks to the theme
    • a clever name - the right name can make the difference between something that attracts interest and something that slips through the cracks

     

    With that said if you have an old project that fits the theme that you can make fit within that criteria:

    • you document the steps it took you to get you there (including letting everyone know that this was an existing project)
    • provide video proof it works
    • it sticks to the theme and its not something that sort of relates to the theme
    • it has a unique name

     

    This is suppose to be something that is loose in structure and a place where community members can have fun and demonstrate creativity with how they:

    • document their journey through video and the steps it took to get there
    • get from idea to project
    • come up with a name for the project
    • come up with solutions as they help other community members along the same journey

     

    If you are going to reuse old projects you can but be honest when you go to document the project.  Obviously, if you were able to do something incredibly mind blowing in the course of a month that would be weighted heavily against someone that iteratively improved on an existing project.

  • in reply to balearicdynamics

    Relax Enrico I was merely referring to the approach of submitting an existing post to a contest, not the actual format of a challenge (though the Project14 idea comes quite close).

  • in reply to fvan

    Instructables is a bit different approach Frederick. It is true what you say but the challenges are not referred to a new project: you publish your instruactble independently by the challenge. Then you can attach the post to the challenges you want. But these are not real challenges as we consider them in E14. This is valid just for a series of conditions; there are instead most of the challenges where you should submit a new published project or you can just submit a project only if it has been published not before than a certain date.

    Last when Instructables makes a real challenge like the E14 you will receive some stuff related to the development but the instructable not only should be new but also never published before somewhere else.

  • in reply to jkutzsch

    I remember asking the same thing, referring to Instructables' approach where existing posts can be submitted to one or more active challenges. But back then, I was told only new posts would be allowed for submission.

     

    Perhaps can clarify?