sudomod

Hey guys!
I was thinking about possibly starting up a recurring community project competition. GBZs and mintyPis are great but it could be fun to encourage folks to tinker with other projects more.

Here's how I was thinking it could work:
Each contest would have a couple of required parts (we'd try to keep them cheap), as well as an overall project budget (to avoid people being able to throw a bunch of money at cool parts), which would sort of establish a theme but also make it fun to see what uses/ideas people would come up with for the required parts. So for example maybe one contest would require that you use an arduino pro micro and a real-time clock module, or something. You'd come up with something cool to make using those and whatever other parts you'd need that you can fit in the budget.
We'd announce the required parts and due date, create a new section in the forums, and once entries are due, people would create a thread showing what they made. Then we'd create a poll for people to vote for their favorite. The winner would get a small prize, and bragging rights. What do you guys think? Is this something you'd be interested in?

If so then I have a few questions for you:
- What would a good time interval be between contests? Every month? Every other month?
- What would be a reasonable amount of time to give folks to finish their project before needing to post it?
- What would be a reasonable project budget? I was thinking $30 or so, including the required parts (so if the required parts cost $10 you'd have $20 to spend on other parts for your idea).

Thanks!

Hey Wermy, I'd be interested in this idea. It sounds great. Having a budget sounds like a good idea because this keeps it fair and means more people could get involved. You could even make a new section specifically for this purpose. I'd be on board with this if you went ahead with it. I think you should allow for adequate time for stuff to come in from china and factor in the time it takes to build. Maybe do it so one project spans 2 months? This would allow 3-4 weeks for parts to come and a month for building and submissions. 20-30 dollars sounds like an affordable budget for aost everyone. I'm interested too see how this idea grows.

I love the idea! I think it sounds great for me as I would really like to get into more of these projects as well! Gives the community a great opportunity to join in and learn and the incentive a competition setting brings could help people like me who take forever to finish builds get them done in a timely manner!

I'd suggest a contest every 3 months (depending on the size of the competition) giving plenty of time to get things even from China and then a decent amount of time for those of us who don't have tons of time every night to dedicate to it. Feel like $50 would be a good budget given shipping costs and all that (depending on the scale of project we are talking about).

One thing to consider is the availability and cost of parts. Some people would have to order from overseas to keep costs down. You'd lose a chunk of your budget in shipping and paying the Ada tax. Is shipping included?

dryja123 wrote: ↑

Fri Mar 30, 2018 5:24 pm

One thing to consider is the availability and cost of parts. Some people would have to order from overseas to keep costs down. You'd lose a chunk of your budget in shipping and paying the Ada tax. Is shipping included?

Good point. Maybe we could limit the required parts to something(s) available on Amazon in the US/Canada and the UK. That should cover the majority of folks, I think.

wermy wrote: ↑

Fri Mar 30, 2018 5:27 pm

Good point. Maybe we could limit the required parts to something(s) available on Amazon in the US/Canada and the UK. That should cover the majority of folks, I think.

I'd say shipping costs are excluded and a part of the creativity is sourcing parts for the build within the budget constraints.

Also, I'm willing to offer my 3d printer and printing services. No modeling, just printing. I'd look to recuperate costs of shipping and materials only.

dryja123 wrote: ↑

Fri Mar 30, 2018 5:30 pm

I'd say shipping costs are excluded and a part of the creativity is sourcing parts for the build within the budget constraints.

Or that. I like that idea.

This sounds cool but I only have an arduino uno so can you at least try to keep this on an arduino microcontroller side please

BIOHAZARD_SOFTWORKS wrote: ↑

Fri Mar 30, 2018 5:58 pm

This sounds cool but I only have an arduino uno so can you at least try to keep this on an arduino microcontroller side please

We'll try to keep the required parts cheap. After that you can use whatever you like.