What Would You Like to See Happen to Project14 in 2018?

Just my 2¢ worth.

Project14 is for everyone in the community to be creative in their design, we are here to help each other (New members or experienced) when we get stuck on an issue. 90% of my electronics knowledge was learned here, everyone was more then welcoming and helpful. I would have been considered a complete electronics newbie. Most of my experience was in programming and hacking. Now, I find a lot of new members are more experienced in electronics then I am now. For the new members, we are all here to help, maybe this should be let more known. We don't want to have the new members feel overwhelmed and not participate because of this. I don't feel having different levels of winning for Project14 is the answer, guiding new members is.

We are a great community!!

Dale W

Perhaps there could be prizes for things other than 'best' project. I thought it a shame there was no reward for Idan or David in the DIY Test Equipment one. Idan made a good effort with trying to get a front-end for his scope project together (not sure I helped much in the end - I think now that I complicated matters rather than making things clearer) and David neatly took the idea of the simple logic probe that I had cobbled together from a comparator and quickly did it much better as a PSoC design. Both of them were stretching themselves and learning new stuff in a way that the actual winners didn't have to. There might be a case for a creativity prize, too.

On a different note, I felt a bit awkward at the end when I was awarded a 'Mentor' badge. Not just because I wasn't mentoring at all, but just helping out a bit in the way anyone would, but also because the notes say that judges are expected to mentor and I wondered if people would therefore think I was involved in the judging (which I wasn't).

There are some really good blog posts that get rolled off the front page pretty quick and might be missed.  What about a Blog of the Week or something similar that stays visible for a while?  It could be an editor’s pick or somehow based on reader feedback.  It might also get some new people recognized. 

The decision to participate is an extremely complex one with  a myriad of variables that all mean something different to each member.

element14 does an excellent job of making competitions as benign and encouraging as possible - more so than any other forum, however Project14 is a competition simply because the rewards are limited and not everyone gets the same accolades or prize.

Project14 is a great format that lowers the barriers to entry while still providing incentive to participate and there is a lot of encouragement for all participants.

I know people who will not participate in competitions period, even if they are experts - which is perfectly fine, and element14 provides the opportunity for them to  participate and blog without competing.

Unfortunately, if Project14 becomes an extremely prestigious activity, competition will increase. If you want to keep the competition to a minimum, keep the prizes small and keep rewarding helpfulness by other members.

Supporting a wide variety of levels of incentive on element14 is crucial in attracting the widest possible participation.

The staff at element14 do a great job of providing a friendly, rewarding, informative forum and it is awesome that they put such obvious effort into trying to make it even better.

There have been contests that have been saved by going bust by some amazing project someone such as yourself submitted.

I think you could reach out and ask any of the regulars if it's looking that way going forward.

While I agree with the comments above, I think you need to put yourself in the shoes of a newbie.

They may not have a circle of friends to show their idea to, so they turn to the project and see some really awesome work, and then start second guessing themselves.

They then look back at their own project and decide it's not worthy or they think it's no where as good, and they don't want to look bad.

Unfortunately that is human nature, and not everyone is wired to trust in themselves.

IMO It is a competition ... just not one that has money as a prize.

Mark

There have been contests that have been saved by going bust by some amazing project someone such as yourself submitted.

The one thing I've been really proud of so far is that we've had winners announcements for each one of our competitions.

There have been times where the competition was going down to the wire and as we're going to move onto the next one we get projects come in and breathe a tremendous sigh of relief.  :-)

This program is for all the members to submit projects regardless of skill set and that includes all the top members and experts we have on the community.

Whenever I want to try something new, its usually someone who is really good at something, that inspires me to try something for myself.

If you only have people that are doing it for the first time, it makes it hard to see the light at the tunnel.

Good projects are good projects wherever they are submitted.

Some people prefer to participate and post on their own blogs,  we welcome them to participate if they have a project that fits the theme.

The more the merrier.  

Its only a competition in the sense that a $5 game of poker is.

You're only there to have a bit of fun and compete for the sake of competition, not for monetary reasons.

Project14 is free for anyone to try and you can use whatever parts you want as long as it fits the theme and lists steps, video, and a title for your project.

My understanding is the Project14 was developed to encourage newer participants and those that might not have the resource to tackle a Design Challenge

I feel the same, it's a nice opportunity for us who cannot have the sustained resources to do a design challenge due to workload, to contribute some interesting projects too. I think it has not discouraged beginner projects, and we're seeing a nice mix of projects from newcomers and from those more experienced. Short and sweet projects.

I don't think that it is top-heavy or anything, we should continue encouraging more participation (e.g. improving navigation as you say) and not discourage anyone from entering, otherwise that leaves no way for people like ourselves to contribute, if we cannot sometimes enter a Project14 challenge either - I guess we would be Ronin. Wandering on our own : )

I don't see it as a competition anyway, the race is only to improve ourselves and have a bit of fun with electronics. Also some months people may need a bit of encouragement by seeing some projects, I certainly do, some stuff was really innovative that people did.

I missed that Xmas tree, thanks for posting it - it is truly awesome : ) I also really loved the coin cell one too, I thought it was inspiring: Gravity Assisted Blinking Coin Cell Christmas Tree

I would like to see the projects opened for more beginning makers

My understanding is the Project14 was developed to encourage newer participants and those that might not have the resource to tackle a Design Challenge.

The idea was to roll out a new theme on the 14th of each month and have each one run for 2 months.

Unfortunately I find the method of linking and being able to easily find the project themes and details, are less the user friendly.

I know it's a work in progress, and I'm not criticising what is/has been done, but rather trying to improve the hit rate for the project.

If the new comers can't easily find the info (without resorting to google) then the opportunities are not there.

IMO a page with the Project14 showing as a timeline with the names down the side showing and date along the top would allow better navigation.

When you click on the project, you should get a a standard page that is the same each time.

• What it's about,
• When you can apply,
• Link to apply,
• Some simple examples.

You should a have a seperate link to the posted entries to stop scaring people off.

While I like the look of the new and improved labels, it isn't really obvious you can click on them (I use Firefox), and they are different to other clickable content, so there needs to be some other options.

Also each entry should be required to be tagged, and this can be used to see the content, without resorting to filling in the search engine. (which IMO is hit and miss even knowing the content is there)

My perception is that the more experienced people are dominating the projects and creating a view that you need to be a good maker to participate.

I would have to agree that we are seeing some very high quality work, but having said that this is from a relative newcomer and IMO is EXCELLENT for Project14

Desktop Christmas Tree

The more experienced could be asked to provide a very simple example that is able to be displayed ....

The Project14 seems to relegated to a side panel, while other bits and pieces are centre stage.

I might be wrong but I'm guessing most people do not arrive at the welcome page to find Ben Heck, they have found the links either via google or Youtube and then discovered the site.

I'd prefer to see 6 boxes and with one as Road Tests, One as Design Challenges, one as Project14, one as webinars and then two others to fight out for other content.

To get to "What is ths Project14 all about" page, you need to click the Enter to Win, then click on the About Project14 which then takes you to ....

Project14: Monthly Project Competitions About You!

The other links also require a double clicking exercise simply to find out what is Project14.

So IMO if you want newcomers to enter (which was the intent of the project14), then you need to make it easy for them to find out about it.

Mark

Holistically speaking, point of entry initiatives are something that we're committed to doing more of in the coming year throughout the community.

Just to point out a few instances:

The Learning Circuit with makerkaren who has been posting videos that take you from absolute novice to participating in projects to post on the community.

Some good examples of this are with The Learning Circuit 03: Wigglebots , The Learning Circuit 02: Series & Parallel Circuits , and The Learning Circuit 04: Basic Tools & Wire .

makerkaren  posted this The Learning Circuit Announcement: Holiday Break Electronics Ideas (ya know, for kids!) ,  Dollar Store Project Parts , and  Dollar Store Challenge - Spikey Ornament to get more participation from people new to electronics projects.

There's also  sudo Sergeant with  technicus who goes into all things Linux and Open Source covering important topics such as sudo Sergeant 03:Installing Raspbian on the Raspberry Pi , sudo Sergeant 06: File Permissions , and sudo Sergeant 07: System Program Shell

technicus  also posted  Arduino Development Environment Alternatives . . .  in Arduino which you should check out.

Linux and open source, coding in general, are important for getting started with Raspberry Pi which e14phil runs and  Arduino which I run.

Some of the best Project14  posts were  Raspberry Pi Projects such as:

• Voice activated torch using a Rube Goldberg Machine by  Workshopshed
• Project Portfolio Badge and Chicken Coop Livestream  by  fvan

Project14  has also brought in some really great Arduino Projects  such as:

• Automated Tea Dunker by carmelito
• AR-Drone Arduino with NeoPixel programmable LED string by rsc
  
• Arduino oscilloscope - DIY entry device and This little bug has a bug   from idanre1
• 3D matrix display from uddin

  Then there is the excellent point of entry content you guys produce such as:

• Element14's Arduino Starter Kit Competition posts by  14rhb
• The specified item was not found.by Shabaz

Really enjoyed all the great projects on here and the bigger picture is that there has been a lot of great content throughout the community.

Once again the enthusiasm for the community from the Top Members has led the charge and we're really excited about a lot of things that we have planned to encourage more participation and more points of entry throughout the community!

We've also got some exciting things being planned right now for element14's The Ben Heck Show  and they are around engagement and participation around electronics projects.

You make some excellent points here.

Perhaps we can layout a doc where we plan out the next season.

We're coming up on a one year anniversary in April this year and would like to do something to commemorate the milestone as its pretty special.

Perhaps a single doc or proposed outline of how things shape up for the year with a spot to volunteer to participate in judging?