As you might have noticed we're already running our 6th challenge (3 finished, 2 active and 1 ending today) and as there have been a lot of discussions about the challenges that have left a lot of open questions, I'll try to explain the reasons behind some of the issues here.
First of all, running these challenges is something new for both GrabCAD and all the engineers here, we still have a way to go to make it perfect, but the good thing is, we as well as clients are learning from every step and making decisions to raise the bar for every next challenge we organize.
Rules & Requirements
How it usually works is that we meet the client to discuss the subject of the challenge and lay down the first spec. We try to avoid writing the spec ourselves as we can not be experts in every field and we believe that the customer should know the most about the problem they are trying to solve, however, sometimes it's not that simple and we need to help the client out in the 'expert' category. Moreover, there is another catch to the spec - limitations kill creativity. Giving you, the engineer a list of 147 rules will leave nothing for imagination. So its a fine balance between the "just enough" and "too much". Also we're trying to keep the challenges challenging and interesting for you and avoid boring themes to steal your weekend. We are also counting on you to ask the right questions and leave constructive comments if we've missed something that might be important. Don't be shy, if you're in doubt, make noise because the chances are you're not alone. We're also trying to engage the client as much into the challenge as possible to give your designs early feedback in order to have some time for improvement.
Deadline
By default the minimum time for one challenge is 2 weeks as we feel any time frame shorter than that would make participating difficult for most of you. Longer than that may be uncomfortable for the client. If the challenges get more complicated we'll make sure to extend the deadline. For now, we'll try to keep the challenges fairly simple (work wise) as we don't want to see you being disappointed doing engineering work for 4 days and not winning anything. You should be able to form your idea into a submittable model in one long afternoon. Remember, getting it to a perfect manufacturable state is not as important as the initial concept. It's the idea that counts, not how great your rendering skills are (not that we do not like all those amazing visuals added to the models!). We will be running more complicated challenges in the future, but even then, you can cut your development time by forming teams with fellow grabcadders and submitting more conceptual ideas than 100% perfect CAD models.
Winners
This is the hardest part. As you've probably seen, the challenges get a lot of great submissions and selecting one that's better than others is not an easy task. The first feedback we usually get from the client is that there are many great designs and not a single winner. They feel that they should take the top 20 and try to make it into one design. Second thing that usually comes up is that the client doesn't look at your awesome render, but looks at your design, your idea. So cut your rendering time by 90% and use it to optimize the design. Regarding the requirements, we'll do our best to check that the designs featured in the top three are applicable but sometimes the client likes something so much that they are willing to sacrifice something else. It's not fair to the engineers and we'll try to avoid that as much as possible. But as in every competition or challenge there will always remain the "personal preference" aspect. We hope this doesn't scare you off and we'll see a lot of cool deck vents, trailer axels, ramps and fenders.
Prizes
Prizes are usually chosen by the client. But as we've seen, the number of entries is growing fast so we'll try to increase the number of finalists, somewhat depending on the complexity and popularity of the challenge. We do like all the great designs to be acknowledged. We want you to participate in the next challenge as well and not feel disappointed if you don't get the gold medal.
It's been a great experience so far seeing how so many great ideas come to life so fast, all of you are doing a great job - we, as well as all the clients appreciate that a lot. Every time the clients see the results they are amazed what everyone can come up with in such a short period of time.
Keep up the good work - and now go and model your first skateramp (I know I will :) ).
