Re-Entering Old Projects In Project14 Contests

Robert Peter Oakes  you have good points. But to address one, change up the rules/requirements to have new or interesting twists. This can prevent re-entry problems. Sometimes this can lead to better projects or old projects reworked which is fine to me. Either way it would show progress and that is what we are about. Right?

Clem

Thank you Tariq

I'm glad you posted your progress on this irrigation project in Open Arduino as well as the Mixing Electronics & Water as this was a project a lot of people were interested in and content that was a joy to follow.

As far as the judging went, your (Semi)automated irrigation project had a majority of first place votes to place as a top 3 first place finisher.

When all was said and done we had 3 worthy winners and the great thing with Project14 is that immediately after one competition ends the next one begins.

Personally,  and the members I've talked to have said the same thing, I love it when I see new people participate, and you can't beat seeing how happy it makes people who win for the first time.

Two of the three First Place Winners for Mixing Electronics & Water were first time participants, so there were no reservations about the choices that were made and I've heard no push back from anyone that would have gone with other choices.

What this tells me is that things are working, but like all things nothing is perfect, and like with all things there is always room for improvement.

The great thing about reoccurring competitions is that things always come up, lessons are learned, and we can fine tune where necessary as we go along.  :-)

I was one of the winners of the "Mixing Electronics and Water" challenge. My entry blog was a very long one which included multiple variations of the theme "Semi-automated irrigation system": One of them was a fairly simple Huzza based solution, and the last entry was an Arduino Uno and ESP-01 version. When the results of the challenge were posted the picture that was used was of the Huzza based version. I felt a bit disappointed because it was nowhere near the quality of the final Arduino Uno and ESP-01 based version. I figured that perhaps most people probably could not be bothered to read the whole blog (it was more than 90 pages long when i saved it as a PDF file). Since one of the new challenges was an open Arduino theme and it appears that i won this one for the Huzza based version, i figured that it was OK to enter the Arduino Uno and ESP-01 based version into the open Arduino challenge. I apologize if my assumptions were wrong and have offended anyone and respectfully request that it be removed from the open Arduino challenge.

- raymond

I think this should be a case by case basis...
If I were a judge and saw the same project come through time and time again I am sure I wouldn't be too happy having to review it over and over again. Although on the other hand If there has been some drastic changes and improvements, maybe criticisms well received, than I feel it is only natural to be reconsidered.

As I recall, the goal of the Project 14 challenge was to entice new bloggers and ideas to the community.

So I think old projects, especially from long term members should be discouraged.

If they have already been discussed or blogged, then they add no new content.

So I would rather see new projects by relatively unknown members so we can entice more discussion in the community.

DAB

I've had mixed feelings about this and wondered what others thought. Thanks for putting together the poll! It's great to see feedback from other members.

I've sorta evolved my thinking on this topic since the program got started.

One of the challenges in the beginning was not knowing what was going to work and what wasn't.

The more ideas and projects that are shared on Project14 the more energy it gives the program.

Some of the most popular contest we've had were DIY Test Equipment , Cool LED Display , The Holiday Special ; but some of those other ones that maybe didn't get as many entries, were none the less special because of the projects that were submitted such as Wacky Automation Devices , Solar Powered Yard Gadget , and  Going Green .

We've had winners for each one of the competitions, so remarkably it seems like we've hit onto the right mix of time and the community member judges who have participated have been really good at pointing out  projects that would have otherwise been missed if picked internally, which is necessary logistically for some of the other contests we run on the community such as Winners Announcement: Win Ben Heck's Portable N64!

There were some competitions where I was wondering what we'd do if there weren't enough projects to have a  winner, but at the last minute it gave us some of my favorite projects such as Project Portfolio Badge , Chicken Coop Livestream , IOT Irrigation valve , Automated Tea Dunker , Tilt Solar Light , Purple Panic Button , Voice activated torch using a Rube Goldberg Machine    1970's Sears 8 Track Repair , Fixing R2D2's Brains , and everyone's favorite windup toy Sparky the Power Chick .

It's been an honor to be your host on Project14 this year and each and every project that's come through has been special,  the images you've chosen and videos you've made, has added so much life to this community.

Grateful for all the community members who have given advice on starting this new program, to me, each and every one of these contests has been a success, and it's been a showcase for how special, you, the community members are.

This program is to highlight your unique take on projects that fit within a theme, and the hope is that will inspire people that have never done a Project14  to give it a try.

So many amazing projects, you guys are awesome, and we're grateful for you guys demonstrating your creativity with every project that's been submitted.

To keep the judging honest and ensure that the winners are deserving I invite you to pm me at   tariq.ahmad  for the Cool LED Display  and  The Holiday Special  judging which we'll be coming through.

The The Holiday Special is set up to make sure there is a giving component added, tis the season, so the 3 first place shopping cart winners will be able to pick 3 projects they like to give shopping carts to and one first place winner will be able to donate a STEAM kit to an institution of their choice to give the love electronics to the next generation!

As long as the program involves community members in the judging, we'll get it as right as possible, and certainly don't want to add too many restrictions as the program is intended to boost participation and have as few barriers to entry as possible!

Robert Peter Oakes  wrote:

 

I ran a contest at the end of last year on Hackster.io and I can tell you, it is very hard to determine what deserves to win and what does not even qualify, this was with a prize worth many thousands of dollars and it was a couple of our own E14 members that ultimately won first 

 

...

That reminds me of the 70's/80's TV show 'The Great Egg Race' which was hosted by the late Prof Heinz Wolff, where if I recall correctly the scoring system was based upon "design", "courage" and "entertainment".

BBC - Archive - The Great Egg Race - Cracking feats of engineering