ESports?

I saw that people are competing to use Excel in ESports competitions and it got me thinking, perhaps soldering or PCB layout could be an ESport?

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baldengineer over 1 year ago +4

At Hackaday's Supercon, there is an ongoing SMD soldering challenge. ( This board isn't the exact one they used, but very similar.) Some people compete to just finish the board and others do it for time…
dougw over 1 year ago +4

e14 contests last weeks or months. Setting up a contest that completes in real time - just minutes - is a whole new thing. It may appeal to different members.
misaz over 1 year ago +3

I remember that about 7 years ago, at local University in my area, there were soldering competition for childrens (or actually, soldering was one category in more complex competition). It was organised…

misaz over 1 year ago

I remember that about 7 years ago, at local University in my area, there were soldering competition for childrens (or actually, soldering was one category in more complex competition). It was organised as part of Doors Open Days. They basicaly had to make cube from 12 wires. Just soldering wires in corners. For most of them it was new experience and many children soldered for first time at this event, but it was still interesting.
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Fred27 over 1 year ago

There's always this kit to test your skills: www.tindie.com/.../
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baldengineer over 1 year ago

At Hackaday's Supercon, there is an ongoing SMD soldering challenge. (This board isn't the exact one they used, but very similar.) Some people compete to just finish the board and others do it for time advantage. The challenge with a non-in-person event for soldering is that very small changes in equipment can significantly impact results.

I think, similar to your thought, PCB routing seemed like an option. It'd be easier to nullify unfair advantages, and there is already a huge software-based speed-running community/toolset to leverage.

So, a couple of years ago, I put together a PCB Routing Speed Run Challenge. (link to Github repo).

At the time, I was streaming 3 days a week and averaged 50-75 concurrent views (with up to 1,000 views total views per stream.) I'm not boasting about those numbers. I just want to point out that for a couple of weeks, I promoted the idea heavily, demonstrated it multiple times (I think my time was around 1 minute, 19 seconds?), and setup a channel for it on my Discord. People in chat pretended to be enthusiastic about it.

The good news is that I am currently the world champion of Bald Engineer's PCB Speedrun challenge. But the bad news is that I am also the only person who ever attempted it.

While I think it would be a fun contest, I failed to find the magic formula to get anyone else interested in it. (I am not saying others shouldn't try to make it happen. I just don't know why my attempt completely failed.)
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robogary over 1 year ago in reply to baldengineer

maybe a trophy is needed to motivate challengers :-)
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dougw over 1 year ago

e14 contests last weeks or months. Setting up a contest that completes in real time - just minutes - is a whole new thing. It may appeal to different members.
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baldengineer over 1 year ago in reply to dougw

Real-time... that's an interesting twist!
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cstanton over 1 year ago in reply to baldengineer

Live on camera, over discord.
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Fred27 over 1 year ago in reply to cstanton

Soldering a powered circuit. Magic smoke means you're out. Last one standing wins.
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md_steve over 1 year ago in reply to Fred27

Watch out for those flyback transformers!
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wolfgangfriedrich over 1 year ago

Coincidently, registration is open for the IPC Design competition 2024.

IPC Design Competition 2024 | IPC International, Inc.

Not sure if the 2023 was a great success, but it sounds like something you are looking for.
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