jamodio 2009-08-04T03:39:02Z 2009-08-04T03:39:02Z

wasup earthlings ? Just stopped by this old corner to say hi :-) Hope everybody is doing ok and looking forward to the start of the next context !! Cheers Jorge (I'm out of 0.02 with this crisis I've to save them now :grin: )

jamodio 2009-08-04T03:39:02Z vernon johnson 2009-04-14T19:53:46Z 2009-04-14T19:53:46Z

As jamodio says (my $.02), I leveraged the Microchip Facebook presence a bit but didn't see anyone else in the contest do so. Don't know what the impact was, except it appeared to be minimal if at all. No complaints though, the prizes in the first two cuts were great.

vernon johnson 2009-04-14T19:53:46Z mimemike 2009-04-04T02:46:46Z 2009-04-04T02:46:46Z

Still Alive... back to work solving other peoples problems... they tend to build up when I'm away for a few days.

mimemike 2009-04-04T02:46:46Z bmorse 2009-04-04T02:37:11Z 2009-04-04T02:37:11Z

yeah, the 149.00 is for one of the iDigi development starter kits, which is not bad, 75 if you have a student ID. Hows it going mike, glad to see you made it home ok.. B Morse

bmorse 2009-04-04T02:37:11Z mimemike 2009-04-04T01:45:52Z 2009-04-04T01:45:52Z

Big difference is that particular completion cost $150 just to enter (read the fine print) I looked at it while I was there as well. Mike

mimemike 2009-04-04T01:45:52Z bmorse 2009-04-04T00:30:59Z 2009-04-04T00:30:59Z

Check this out you guys, they announced this at ESC 2009 in San Jose, but it looks like they are doing what I suggested recently to the judges and had just picked a panel of judges to do the voting.... [quote]Judging: The contest judges are as follows: Joel Young – Senior VP Engineering and Chief Technology Officer, Digi International Jordan Husney – Software Engineer, Digi International Larry Kraft – Senior VP Global Sales & Marketing, Digi International Steve Ericson – VP of Product Management, Digi International Matt Serra – Director , Mulberry Marketing Communications Jon Titus – Editor, Dev Monkey, Reed Publications [/quote] [quote] Winners: A winner will be announced at the end of each quarter. The prize awarded will be $1500. Three overall winners will be announced at ESC Silicon Valley 2010, with the following prizes to be awarded: 1st Prize = $7500 2nd Prize = $5000 3rd Prize = $2500 The overall winners will be chosen from the complete pool of submissions during the course of the competition; previous quarterly winners are not excluded, and we encourage participants to resubmit improved designs throughout the competition period. Each winner will be announced via press release and the winning solution featured on www.digigreen.com. [/quote] And the BUM System falls right into their categories!!!!:grin: [quote]Contest categories include [b]energy saving for electrical consumption, energy saving for water consumption[/b], energy saving for natural gas or fuel consumption, and eliminating or monitoring air pollution.[/quote] too bad I'm still recuperating from this one.:wacko:... And I think I will wait for the next challenge from microchip instead..... Brent Morse

bmorse 2009-04-04T00:30:59Z radioruler 2009-04-01T20:41:19Z 2009-04-01T20:41:19Z

I agree with Pete. Microchip, Digi-Key and techinsights are all technical companies and derive little benefit from social exposure to non-technical people. I see little to no marketing value gained by exposing their names to the general public. The promotion and prizes were awesome!!! I had a lot of fun and I hope there is another contest soon. :lol: :grin: -_- :) sincerely, Richard

radioruler 2009-04-01T20:41:19Z saipan59 2009-04-01T19:13:12Z 2009-04-01T19:13:12Z

This has all been covered already in other forum threads, but here is my opinion of a summary: 1) Never, never, ever again have a large component for "community votes", where the community is NOT verified technical people that are qualified to have input. That said, I understand that a major purpose of the Design Challenge was Marketing. The "free-for-all" voting probably creates a lot of Microchip traffic on places like Facebook, which has a certain value. But, I would suggest working out a way to separate the "technical merit" aspect from the "viral marketing" aspect, and clearly state it from the beginning. For example, have separate prize categories. 2) On the technical merit aspects, have clear definitions (with examples) of what the criteria are. For example, the "efficiency" criterium was never explained, even though there were a variety of questions about it it early on. Later, I think we all realized that nobody was paying attention to those five "merit" ratings anyway. 3) The "$400 limit" needed a much better definition, with examples of what is acceptable, and what is not. 4) I could certainly be wrong here, but in going from the Top 32 to the Top 8, I suspect that the judges used a "demographic" component as part of their decision-making process. I think this is PERFECTLY FINE, except that I think it should be stated openly in the rules, and made a true part of the contest. 5) The web site had a lot of problems, as we all know. When the contest started, the site was clearly not ready. Even today there are problems. Since the main users of the site are a bunch of technical geeks, I would suggest that "solid functionality" must be the top priority. Flashy 'browser gadgets' and cool images don't impress us geeks anyway (we know how they work!). 6) On a positive note: The contest prizes and such have been really great! Thanks for allowing me to participate in the Challenge! I am a dedicated Microchip user, both as a hobby and professionally, and I'm sure I will continue to be. I have several hobby projects in my head - I just need more time to work on them. Pete

saipan59 2009-04-01T19:13:12Z