I know it can be very hard to win a design challenge so I thought I would put down a few pointers on how to succeed:
First, I want to clarify that none of these remarks are a criticism of contest rules or the judges and judging process.
The contests are great and the judges do a fine job.
The advice here is not what I actually do when competing, but I do projects for more reasons than just winning. However, if you want to win, these tips should help.
A key concept in winning is that you will never have enough time to do everything you think should be done to give you the best chance of winning, so you need to focus on those activities that will give you the highest chance with the least effort. Of course, you still need to apply the maximum effort you can muster, just apply it where it counts.
For example recent design challenges require 5 blogs plus an intro blog and a final blog, and they have scoring points associated with each of these blogs. These points are pretty much automatic for all blogs except the final blog, as long as you post something.
- There is no requirement for the first 6 blogs to have any significant content or any fancy multimedia content. A simple paragraph of text or a few bullets will net you full points for each of these blogs. It is easy to look at some of the other project blogs to see how little work is needed. As I mentioned this is not what I do, but from a winning perspective, you are far better off spending all your time on the final blog.
- Recent contests also have a participation category where scoring points are awarded for participation. This doesn't require much, I think just answering a couple of questions that show up in comments under your blog should be enough to get full points.
- Some contests have a leaderboard that shows a running tally of normal "participation" points that you get for comments and likes, but this can be ignored. Maximizing this leaderboard number doesn't count for anything. In some contests the participation tally for the winning entry had less than 10% of the points that other projects accumulated - and the participation scores that actually counted were the same for all the contenders, regardless of the large difference in leaderboard scores. So the advice here is don't waste a lot of time and effort participating with comments on other projects. Again this is not what I do, but it will let you focus on things that count.
- Do not waste any time on bells and whistles and cute features in your project, build your main concept in the fastest way possible and get it working well enough to present. If by some miracle you finish your final blog early, you can add some bells and whistles or polish up your final blog. Of course I don't do my projects this way, but going down those extra feature rabbit holes is a dangerous risk and not part of a winning strategy. A high percentage of contestants never finish their project.
- Don't do a lot of videos, they take an enormous amount of time and are hard to do well enough to impress the judges. If you do make a video, keep the camera totally still and try to get a lot of light on the subject. (I do a lot of videos, but there are more productive things to spend time on)
- Take a lot of pictures - they are quick - much faster than writing text descriptions and it is way easier to take nice pictures than nice video.
- Add a lot of graphs of your test data, this is where you want to spend a lot of time, although oscilloscope images can save time if you have a scope. For some reason, graphs count heavily with judges.
- You do not need to waste time designing a PCB or waste money on such items. Judges don't attach much if any weight to this kind of design work, even though it is a design challenge, so the time spent and the risk taken that it won't work are not worth the effort. Plus it can mess up your schedule big time. If you have seen my projects, you know I almost always design a PCB, but I do it because I like designing - it doesn't impress anyone.
- Do not bother 3D printing cases for your project. They take a lot of time to design and a lot of time to print. You can quickly make pretty much anything with cardboard and duct tape and cardboard mechanical things are so easy to adjust. Re-spinning a 3D print is very time-consuming. With a little care, a cardboard box can look just fine and it is easier to paint.
(I always 3D print my mechanics these days, and I am not thrilled when I get beaten by a cardboard box, but cardboard is perfectly competitive in many ways)
Is all this sound advice?
I have been a member on element14 for 10 years and have attempted 15 design challenges. I only won 6 times, but that 40% win rate is a bit better than the random chance of about 1 out of 20 contestants in each challenge. As mentioned, I don't follow the above advice, but this is because I like the creativity of designing electronic circuits and printed circuit boards and 3D printed mechanics.
I also like to make my blogs as entertaining as possible, with lots of multimedia content. It takes more time and effort than the above advice, but I generally want my projects to survive for a few years and I want the blogs to be entertaining for members to view. Judges are not mandated to determine which project was liked by the members, so that doesn't need to be an objective in creating a winning project. Judges are expected to choose what they think is the best project.
Note that the above advice may become obsolete as contest rules and judging evolve, but when you are strapped for time, they should help you get through it.
There are a lot of other things involved in winning, like choosing a sexy project and of course there is the whole issue of writing a successful proposal to be chosen as a competitor.
I am actually much more successful at writing proposal than winning contests, but that is a topic for another time - it is much different than competing in the build phase. If you are having trouble writing successful proposals, mention it in the comments below.
I should mention that the experimenting challenges are slightly different from design challenges, but they have an even bigger focus on graphs and data that design challenges.
I have participated in 7 experimenting challenges, but only won one of them. I always try to have fun doing something creative instead of sticking to rigorous test and measurement aimed at proving the manufacturer's data sheet is accurate.
My proposals get accepted, but the judges aren't looking to see who spent hundreds of hours on design work. So you probably don't want to do what I do with experimenting challenges. If you want to win an experimenting challenge, the same advice from above applies, but you will also likely need some expensive test instrumentation and you will need to spend a lot of time taking rigorous measurements. Check out some of Gough's superlative work if you want to get an idea of what is needed to win an experimenting challenge. My advice here is find a way to have fun with the challenge and don't count heavily on winning.
Road tests are quite different again. I won't cover them here, but if you want to do a road test, you should definitely apply and make sure your genuine interest is spelled out in your proposal and include a link to an example of your work. If you want more pointers, mention it in the comments below.
I hope this discussion, including comments below, helps members compete more effectively in design challenges.
