Seeking Your Feedback on a Beat Our Board Design Challenge - Grand Prize $5,000

Here's another idea, just to brainstorm a bit;

It could be attractive to customers to see the actual use of the PI product, for instance, what it is like designing for that unusual IC package, and what real-world transformer (or custom one) works, and what is practical in terms of PCB size and PCB technologies, and what measurements were taken. This would (I hope) be interesting to the manufacturer too; they could learn a lot since nobody will know their product better than customers who get their hands dirty with it.

Trying to compete with other manufacturer parts is for sure a valid challenge, but it's a type of challenge that might help in initial device selection but won't help customers in using the PI product.

Since it's a lot of work, and 10 contestants who will do it justice with the custom work (PCBs, etc that will be required) will be hard to find, perhaps a method without a contest could be better, that way only one person (or say two persons) need to be found, and let them have lots of latitude in what they design, and providing they do produce the material, then for them to be awarded the full amount (it would easily consume a couple of months of work, so instead of June 2024, material could be available sooner this way, and if customers benefit from it, then PI could run a second campaign of some sort - so it's quite efficient. It would cost the same - might as well let both people (if there are two) be awarded the identical full amount if they produce the content; let them not feel they are competing against each other so that they can share material as they work.

If it were me (I am not saying I would apply, but I might be tempted if I could concentrate on the things that I feel would interest me and customers, rather than try to meet a specification that doesn't meet my needs) I'd be interested in making a reliable power supply (perhaps several of the PI devices, OR'ing them together) with the benefit of higher output current at lower input voltages.

It might not be what all their customers might want (but I bet manufacturers only know what a subset of customers do with their products; and if PI really wanted precise alignment then they might benefit from looking for a case study with the customers that they might already be working with). So, in this case, perhaps it is not a negative thing that it will be hard to find 100% alignment; if the application is still likely to reveal relevant stuff - for instance, I would say that's quite realistic from a heat generation point of view, having more heat sources on a board than just a single power supply.

Others might be interested in (say) using the chip for a different output voltage, perhaps, and maybe that might reveal valuable information to customers, about how versatile that chip is (or not). 

Here's another idea, just to brainstorm a bit;

It could be attractive to customers to see the actual use of the PI product, for instance, what it is like designing for that unusual IC package, and what real-world transformer (or custom one) works, and what is practical in terms of PCB size and PCB technologies, and what measurements were taken. This would (I hope) be interesting to the manufacturer too; they could learn a lot since nobody will know their product better than customers who get their hands dirty with it.

Trying to compete with other manufacturer parts is for sure a valid challenge, but it's a type of challenge that might help in initial device selection but won't help customers in using the PI product.

Since it's a lot of work, and 10 contestants who will do it justice with the custom work (PCBs, etc that will be required) will be hard to find, perhaps a method without a contest could be better, that way only one person (or say two persons) need to be found, and let them have lots of latitude in what they design, and providing they do produce the material, then for them to be awarded the full amount (it would easily consume a couple of months of work, so instead of June 2024, material could be available sooner this way, and if customers benefit from it, then PI could run a second campaign of some sort - so it's quite efficient. It would cost the same - might as well let both people (if there are two) be awarded the identical full amount if they produce the content; let them not feel they are competing against each other so that they can share material as they work.

If it were me (I am not saying I would apply, but I might be tempted if I could concentrate on the things that I feel would interest me and customers, rather than try to meet a specification that doesn't meet my needs) I'd be interested in making a reliable power supply (perhaps several of the PI devices, OR'ing them together) with the benefit of higher output current at lower input voltages.

It might not be what all their customers might want (but I bet manufacturers only know what a subset of customers do with their products; and if PI really wanted precise alignment then they might benefit from looking for a case study with the customers that they might already be working with). So, in this case, perhaps it is not a negative thing that it will be hard to find 100% alignment; if the application is still likely to reveal relevant stuff - for instance, I would say that's quite realistic from a heat generation point of view, having more heat sources on a board than just a single power supply.

Others might be interested in (say) using the chip for a different output voltage, perhaps, and maybe that might reveal valuable information to customers, about how versatile that chip is (or not).