Hello
Firstly I thanks e14 for organizing many design challenges and that too
without restrictions on qualification, age, marks, country, only school or college, or only from recognised ... , mandatory professor, blog word limit or other kind limits on blog writing etc, a trend which they must continue.
However, I have found e14 organizing these and experimenting with different judging criteria. Some of the reasons I noticed,
1) with more contestants, number of blogs gets increased for the judges.
2) with more blogs, the marks for the person who should be second can become the grand prize winner.
3) with new schemes like
- A blog that contains a decent unboxing or detailed photographs will get up to 20 points.
- A blog that contains a deep-dive into the components will get up to 20 points.
- A blog that contain a fair amount of information towards an actual experiment will get up to 20 points.
- A blog that significantly helps newcomers to work with the technology will get up to 20 points.
- A blog that contains a good quality video will get up to 20 points.
- A blog that uses components in an application or prototype to test or experiment with them will get up to 20 points.
This is my personal opinion, a design challenge should have and must be judged according to
- using of kit components from sponsor is a must .
- Any blog must not be judged whether it has this factor or not. This only a fresher or a new graduate or young or new new learners or who just want to submit entry (how to submit entry, no idea how to submit) can do but not other kind contestants.
- Any blog must not be judged whether it has particular factor or not.- this even judges are going to mess and miss.
- Explaination of technology or the details of the component from datasheet, blogs will then have plagiarize content .
- I had submitted grievance in my 2nd last design challenge as it looked to me, they have evaluated on basis towards designing of the final not on the basis of optional extra credit blog, and their(judges) ease in understanding and finishing the evaluation work in 1-2 days.
- Contestants still sticking to same, first blog introdcution, unboxing and the final summary.
Simple - Its a design challenge, whether one is able to submit as per level or simple try or experiment or not, the criteria should be
- submit in atleast 1 or 2 or 3 or 5 blogs the progress towards final or as per theme, as the first blog will go in introduction or unboxing.
- This will explain what one has done with the kit,
If someone wants to write tutorial, its upto him/her, it can have additional marks but not the accumulated increase of marks, like i had submitted 6 tutorials instead 55x6, it was 30 , the judge didnt marked me on based of quantity , may be poor quality!
All blogs need not be given marks, quantity of work produced should be taken if it is relevant. There are many good graphic editors or engineers who can write excellently with stories but do such blogs really deserves marking.
Do it stick to the theme or just one is submiited his/her way of submitting the entry. The likes do not define whether someone has stick to the design challenge, or the theme like experimenting with the kit.
How many marks one can get, your points rules under 'new schemes' is a good rule but not a thumb rule.
Obvious, with excellent content, you may not want to restrict to 20 marks, say bonus marks 100 !
Then even if one submits 20 blogs, his/her 10 blogs can make up zero points, if not good quality or not relevant as per theme. Thus, final table which comes should be removed as it should be revealed only in the end.
With the more number of blogs, you may want to consider quantity, effort or one wants to express clearly but that shouldbe taken as trick of getting more marks.
Judges should be given more time, which I dont think you do not, but just adding here.
All this can be simple, whether one has tried or contributed towards design challenge or not, whether one stick to the theme and with the kit components or not.
How one wants to express himself/herself must not be restricted by blog factor, for judges ease! He/she may be not able to represent but might be the best contestant or one of the best among top 3 and may not be able to make top 3.
Here I m no debating, arguing or criticing, but a personal opinion which you can altogether reject if the couple of challenges based on this scoring system has worked quite well for organizers, judges. Its your site, your business, its upto you how you want, later on blog word restriction can be there, more ease for judge.
Time Duration of Project/ Design Challenge/ Path programmable
There are design failures, personal problems, either you can increase instead of 45 days or 60 days to 90 days or 120 days! or being a MNC, you can roll out separate (paid or not paid or as business) like the application engineers develop and submit.
Thanks
