Hi Mike,

I guess I should chime in here. I share your sentiments about the rules and I'm sure the judges do as well as do most of the members. (Although I don't necessarily agree about the way to address the issue).

It is very tough for introverted techies to put their ideas, their work and themselves on display for the world to critique, not to mention the constraints of time, money, technology and other priorities. Every participant has different motives for participating, but it isn't usually about the prizes - they are never worth a fraction of the effort required to complete these challenges. For me, I am always working on a bunch of projects because I really enjoy designing and making stuff work - challenges like this provide a little extra incentive to complete projects on a schedule. The price is - you have to put yourself and your work on display. I think for many of us, including me, the interaction, encouragement and respect of the other members are the primary incentives.

On this project I definitely wanted to use the great kit that was part of the challenge and I spent a lot of time working with it and blogging about my experiences with it. In that sense it was used in the project.

In the end, I had to make some hard engineering decisions to get the system working within the schedule, knowing full well that these decisions would have a negative impact on my chances of winning. For me, getting the system working is always a primary goal. I get a deeper satisfaction from making it work than from winning (although winning is nice too). I have done lots of projects where I didn't win but still got tremendous satisfaction.

The judges obviously have a very difficult task when faced with this type of situation and I don't envy their dilemma. I am just extremely grateful that they expend the considerable time and effort it takes to wade through all of our ramblings and try to make sense of them. It is a great boon to this community.

I am already sure the solar power concept works to some extent, however there are questions about how well it works under various conditions - which is why I need to try the system out. I did not spend all that money and build it just to take up precious space in my house (it is huge). I definitely will try it out when the snow flies and update the blog.

It would only be fair if you would eat the bricks in front of a GoPro Hero 4 black too

Oh, and if you all are so convinced that Doug's design will work, then I have one final challenge for dougw:

Let's wait a few months until in winter falls at least 20 cm of snow. The challenge is to clear an area of let's say 20 m^2 (walkway in front of my house is 20 m long and 1 m wide so this would be the baseline) from snow with his device in reasonable time (couple of hours). Then make a time-lapse video (you can use your brand new GoPro Hero 4 black) of how your device performs. I look forward for your video (althoug I know exactly how the outcome will be). If it will work, i will take my words back (and maybe i will eat some bricks).

OK, lesson learned: Terms and Conditions means nothing on Element14 Community.

If you secretly dropped this clause from Terms and Conditions before announcing the winners, i would end up with empty hands. You have reserved the right to do so:

Spanner,

not only I totally agree with this point of view, that makes the challenges real challenges and not a bureaucracy bet.

About the so criticised reliability in the reality of the Doug's project, I'd like to remember to all the curious and interested member of this community that - just few years before Doug - there was another maker and engineer, a certain Archimede, not so trusted by some colleagues that supported by his sponsors built something like the Doug's project with the difference to use paraboloid mirrors. He has done more damage than this project as burnt a lot of ships... But this was happening a long long long time ago around Athens...

Enrico

Okay, this is a tricky one, as I don't want to set precedents or cause confusion in future Design Challenges. But when choosing the winners, we do make an effort not to arbitrarily dismiss inspiring, creative or unique projects on account of strict adherence to the rules. We absolutely want to set rules, that should be stuck to in order to give everyone good and fair chance of winning, and it's important to go into a project design with full intention of staying within said rules. That won't change, and in that respect, you do raise a good point mfenner, and you have every right to raise it. Indeed, we want you to.

The difficulty we face in choosing the winning projects is a commitment to the community overall. You see, our objective here isn't primarily to give gear to 15 people in order to promote it, nor to make a big announcement about who's won. What we're really mining for here are inspired projects, great content and, most of all, lots of valuable participation among the members (and not just those who are taking part).

Therefore, we sometimes do break our own rules, if we feel that doing so enriches the content and engagement that the entire element14 Community can enjoy. Doug's project is one of these exceptions, though it certainly isn't the first. Rest assured that you'd receive the exact same consideration, if it's clear that the rules might hamper your creativity or unnecessarily drop an anchor on a great project.

Hope this helps, and doesn't come across as some corporate justification! It's genuinely not meant to be

On a personal note, I do feel inclined to point out that the sun is the primary method of shifting snow, so surely Doug's project is on the right track there!

I'm sure they will read this.

Mike as I am just a user like you, if you have this kind of complains why you don't contact Element14 ? So you also save times and avoid to continue arid polemics. Try contacting spannerspencer or - maybe better - element14Dave

Ok balearicdynamics,

let's consider Pi IoT Design Challenge for a moment. In this design challenge Raspberry Pi 3 is a mandatory part. Do you think it would be cool if winning project in this design challenge didn't use Raspberry Pi 3 at all and the winner decided to use for example BBB?

I think it is quite impressive. Constructing an accurate and reliable mechanism like this is a complicated process. I first-hand was involved in constructing and controlling a (stepper) motorized gimbal system during my first job, and it was challenging.

I don't find it unreasonable that mirrors could melt snow, or perhaps swapped out with fresnel lens sheets or similar (just throwing out ideas) based on the design presented to achieve its aim, even if it needs scaling or multiple devices.

A real product goes through many iterations by team(s), design rework, many months or years and large budgets before it is ready for customers. A design challenge is far shorter of course, but for an individual it is an _extensive_ amount of work, and the path taken can change as a project evolves. I have mega respect to all the contestants who did work for this design challenge, not just the winners. The winning entries are awesome though!!