Saturday, March 24, 2012

Design Competition Entries

Hi folks,

This year has been a busy year for a lot of folks, and we've had a few teams drop out.  While we have enough people to do a final competition event, we don't have enough people to award cash prizes as it might appear as a conflict of interest and get me in hot water.  Instead, we will have trophies and pizza (although, you'll get pizza whether you win or not, lol).

If you plan on attending, I will need a really simple report of your project by Sunday, April 1st as a PDF.  It needs to include your BOM with total costs, a bibliography if you used anyone's code/schematics/mechanical designs, your code, and a description of your project and how it works.  It doesn't need to be anything overly extensive or fancy.  Email it to me at electricityandairwaves@gmail.com.

The competition date is being decided by a few folks that have kept up on their emails.  It will likely be between April 4th and April 11th.

I need to stress that you do not need a fully functioning prototype to participate.  The way the competition is judged takes functionality only as a small consideration.  Please come and show off your ideas, the snags you hit, and eat some pizza with us.


Tuesday, March 20, 2012

RESPONSE REQUIRED

I need an email at electricityandairwaves@gmail.com before the end of the week if your team still plans on entering the final competition.  As to be expected, we've had a couple teams drop out because they've gotten too busy, but I don't know how many folks are left.  If we don't have enough entries, we may need to cancel the competition.

Thank you,
Austin

Monday, March 5, 2012

Upcoming workshops and competition info

Hi folks,

Our next workshop is Tuesday, March 6th at 7.  Darrel will be talking about how to use your Arduino as an oscilloscope and other nifty things that may be useful to you. From what I understand, Darrel will be introducing you guys to Processing, which is a visual programming language and interfaces very easily with Arduino.

We will have another workshop next week that will be a chance to get any help you need on your code, schematics, or troubleshooting. If you get stuck with anything, you are welcome to email either of us for help.

The final competition will be the second or third week of April. I need to talk to some of our sponsors and judges to see what exact date works the best.

We will need a PDF with a brief description of your project, how it works, your code, electrical schematics, mechanical plans (if applicable), bill of materials (with costs of components), and a list of any code or schematics from other people (similar to a Works Cited page in a research paper) by April 1st. It doesn't need to be anything lengthy or extreme, just enough to show what you did. While Darrel and I don't need anything fancy, it's great to have something to show the judges what you designed and created. It may be worth it to print out nice, color copies for the judges.


EVEN IF YOUR PROJECT IS NOT FINISHED OR WORKING 100%, YOU SHOULD COMPETE ANYWAYS. Only a small portion of the competition is based off of a functioning prototype. If you have a neat idea and something breaks or just doesn't want to work, you could still win one of the 5 prizes :)

Anyways, hope to see you folks there!
Austin