I saw all entries and I am sure 100% that judging was unfair.

My full project with detail documentation, large amount of flow charts, images, source codes for C code of mbed and 2 java applets source codes and 2 videos was work of many months, while some others have not done so work as me.

New libraries was developed for Camera module and fixed of very important ethernet libraries also as HTTP Web Server and TCP settings. The new way of representation of images from received TCP/IP packets on the Java applet was presented.

But judge was not realise this deep work on mbed as also on the Java applets.

So I reject they offer for Distinctive Excellence.

This is the first time when I really saw so unfair judging. So I decide to stop any participation on Circuit Cellar future contests because I feel that judge are to noobs to judge the advanced projects.

If you feel same then I am not alone who think the same.

One other good thing is to make a POLL and see what realy the mbed community think about all projects in the contest. It will be interesting if the poll will show the real winner maybe after that I will post my whole project to the mbed website.

I for one am disappointed that almost none of the winners have published anything or participated in the community work. From a quick look it seems only Hexley has published any libraries or notebook pages during the contest. Wasn't community collaboration one of the main points?

Hi Igor, Anastasios,

I've spoken to a lot of people who said they didn't want to publish things before the competition was over, which I can understand in some ways. I believe the Circuit Cellar competitions have previously been run in quite a secretive way, so there is a bit of a precedent for not disclosing anything during the entry period.

Now it is over, I'd hope this will encourage people to publish their efforts. From those I heard about (I didn't get to see the entries, so just from discussions with people i've met) there is some pretty cool stuff out there! I'd hope to see it start to be shared on the site.

I don't think you can say the judging is unfair; they obviously had criteria that resulted in this order! But I do like the idea of a more community driven contest; maybe we could look to run our own mbed competition in the future :) Interested in any ideas!

Simon

Hi Simon,

Then I will wait for your next contest and resubmit my ready project there :)

Stas

Hi Anastasios,

I am afraid you have missed the judging criteria of this kind of competitions.

The Judges want to see people using all the available features of the chip and at the end of the day, it is a great market tool for them. You may have a highly technical complex project fixing many Ethernet and network bugs during the project development but if you are just using 30% of the features of the chip, you will not win, at least not the first price.

Look at the project that gets the first price. It uses all the available features of the chip.

My 2 cents.

cheers Derek

Hi Derek,

Intersting post but do you think the quantity is matter or the quality?

I did not find any line in their requirement where saying that developer must use all possible hardware in order to win.

But if we count what you say then what about the second winner who just make an rtos where is the peripheral and it hardware?

What I understand from this contest is that they are looking for new libraries and new novel design which you have never saw before on previous contest and will make mbed more attractive and bring it more close to new mbeder who just want to make first steps.

But I never read some where do a lot of external circuits and use of all components in order to win.

For this reason I used the ready components from Cool Components in order to make it easy for any other engineer to design the same hardware and just load to mbed all required files. Is the mbed develop to be complex, I think not and this mean also that the approach for the design should be not complex but smart and fast.

I am also would like to see from Circuit Cellar the official excel chart or any chart from where they put their analysis and select the winners. Just want to know what my project score had comparing to all others.

Is like for example in the running competition of 100m the rules is simple who is the first he or she is the winner.

So it will be very nice and honest if the judges provides the complete results, descriptions and comments why each contestant have achive they score.

But I think they probably have not anything like that and they choose winner in some other way.

Regards, Stas

Does anyone know why DE winners haven't been posted yet?.

Anastasios, sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. That's life. In fact, you were awarded a price (DE) but you rejected it. Don't you think that winning a prize is better than winning nothing?.

Hi Gonzalo,

Is not about the win. Is about why and how I lose in order to improve my self, but Circuit Cellar do not provide any information about all contestant performance and comments.

I just want to see the clear description of why my project have lower score than some others, so I will se my weekness. After that I will understand where I was make mistake or what ever they see wrong in my project.

You know when you work for few months for something and later on you see some other work you ask your self question why... This is why I am shocked with the what I saw because I know what I done. I do not know what was your effort but I know what was mine.

For me the real contest must be clear and honest. I always accept the results when I see the proof.

But anyway I want to say congratulation to winners. All my against was just against the judges and they know that they were unfair. You know what I understand from all this thing is that it time to make the real honest contest where everything will be clear in that case I will participate in they contest but if they will not change anything of they judging process then I am out of their any future contest.

Regards, Stas

Ok, now I understand your concern. You are right about wanting to know why you didn't win. I hope you get the answer you are looking for. Maybe someone from Circuit Cellar or Elektor is reading this.

Stas

Yes, as someone who works as an EE but has taught college level EE coursework, I definitely understand your request to see how your project stacked up against it's peers. This is only natural for anyone who is being graded. So, I don't see why some basic data on the contest couldn't be published? What was the total number of entries received? the number of judges? etc. And maybe some general feedback or rank on your project. You are asking for some basic verification - not unlike most anyone receiving a grade. This only adds to the credibility. Can someone make a mistake in grading or evaluation? Absolutely. None-the-less, as a past CC contest submitter, I don't remember ever seeing this information published. These contests seem to require more and more effort to be competitive - and require a substantial investment in time to get any recognition. Some people don't put much effort in their projects and shrug it off when they don't win anything. But for those who really make an investment - I think they do deserve more - these people should receive more feedback then what is currently provided (for most people it is none).

So, I share your feeling on how these contests are judged. I've seen some truly great project winners in the past and I've seen other winners that have left me underwhelmed and wondering what the judges were thinking (no slight to this contest - I have not reviewed the winning projects in detail). It sounds like you created a substantial project that you are very proud of - and you were making significant contributions to the mbed community - congratulations. And now you make me intrigued about your project, since you have the courage to challenge the judging. I'm wondering why you can't find another method of publishing your project? I'm not only interested in the technical aspects, but also in making my own comparison to the published winners.

Dave

Hi Dave,

Thank you for your post. I am just very happy today because I win the first place in my other contest of Cypress PSoC5 Design Challenge, you can find the link of my project below: http://72.3.161.91/?id=3312&conID=19

I am not the Grand winner who also win extra 2500$, but I am the winner in my category and I win 1000$ :) This project was different than from the mbed. I am happy that at least one of my two projects find their recognition :) So in the near future I will publish my mbed project but not from Circuit Cellar maybe from EE Times just looking for proper Magazine. I am looking for good suggestion where it will be good to publish personal project?

Kind Regards, Stas

Stas

It is interesting the Cypress PSoC contest provided a project score as well as background information on the judges (where does TJ Rodgers find all the time?) - ideas that we have been kicking around here. You have what looks to be an excellent project for the PSoC contest - I encourage others to check it out from the posted link. If you submitted something similar in-scope and difficulty for this contest, I can understand your frustration and this seems to reinforce your argument. So I'm left to wonder if you had a simple technical error in your submission for this contest? It has happened to me on a past CC contest. I left my name as the author in the source code (old habit). They rejected my submission, but offered Distinctive Excellence. Have you asked them if this is the situation?

cheers,

Dave

Hi Dave,

Thanks :) I have not left any of my name and email in any source code so my project was perfect designed and constracted with all required information.

Also after of 7 years of expirience in Circuit Cellar contests where my first project was also receive Distinctive Excellence in 2004 for AVR. I am sure that I have design it in so excelent way that for judge it will be to hard to find any negative things on it.

This is the reason why judges are to silent, because they understand that they made mistake.

Regards, Stas

Oh come on Stas, don't be so resentful and unforgiving. Give your heart a shake, publish and present your project and show the mbed community how grand your publication was. My project could not be finished as i was on a business trip abroad for over a month and was too busy in my job.

Regards Voy

Hi voy ager,

Do not worry at least you enjoy your business trip :) I will publish it, just looking to publish it in proper place :) Give me a time for that.

Regards, Stas

Stas,

I think everybody submitting their entries to the challenge sees their project as perfect and without errors. But this doesn't mean that there are thing the judges don't understand, or value differently. Also remember that the guidelines for the mbed challenge have been very broad: be original and creative, be efficient, and deliver high-quality work. I know that my submission falls short at least on documentation and the video - and maybe the idea wasn't as creative as I'm thinking.

Since you mentioned the PSoC contest: look at the LIMB entry of the digital group. The person submitting this has also submitted the same project, using another hardware, to the STM32 contest. He won a price in the STM contest, but not in the PSoC contest. I would assume that both submissions are of equal quality - but only one won.

I consider my PSoC contest submission as less work then the mbed one - but the first one won the the latter one got just a DE award. Why? Because the PSoC submission did show what the judges were seeking - and the mbed one didn't. And yes, I was somewhat disappointed that several months of work didn't result in more than that.

Hi Hendrik,

At least we are winner in Cypress so be happy for that and congratulation also for your Grand Price there! :) If you feel that your submition for mbed falls in some aspect then it good for you that you at least found your answers. But I have not yet understand why mine was falls.

Regards, Stas

Dear Simon i would like to publish my project here but i don't know how it includes documentation , PC software and Videos , i would like to send them to you by email so that u can find a suitable way to publish them on site , the project was about taking mbed another step up by using it with SOFT PLC's, so that mbed works as an I/O Card that serve the Soft PLC software on computer, i used a famous Soft PLC Wonderware Incontrol , but u can use the same software with any Soft PLC product that support DDE Connection to the I/O Card Drivers i am waiting your replay

Hi Mohamed,

Sounds great! For videos, those are best published on YouTube which can be linked in to wiki pages easily (see editing tips in the bottom right of the cookbook/notebook edit box).

For files, click the "insert images or files" in the top right of a cookbook/notebook edit box.

Simon

Dear Simon Thank you for your quick reply I had uploaded the videos to YouTube and posted them on my notebook But unfortunately I am not apple yet to add an archived file (.rar format) which include the PC software Written on C++ using Borland C++ Builder Version six could u please help me with this N.b:- I will really appreciate your feed back about the project please see the videos and till me what do u think about the project

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPi4Jp_sNcc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7KfFxyZLNKw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLsz-qzAg00

Does anyone know what happened with the DE winners announcement?. It has passed a week since the general winners announcement and the DE winners page keeps saying "Coming soon". So, after waiting a week I'm starting to wonder: HOW SOON!?

I heard "Hopefully mid May"

@ Anastasios Kanakis

Hi Stas, did you ever publish your mbed Project and if you did, where???

Hi voy ager!

Thank you for your interest. Actually this project will be a canditate for IEEE paper. I decide to inform my supervisor that during my spare time of my PhD I have done that project, but some people did not understand the effort and novelty which I put on it, so we discuss that because this project was not published anywhere we can adjust it for IEEE with proper writing. So hope we will find the suitable conference and receive the acceptance, then this project will be available to community. Some times I think and remember that what ever was happen it was happen for good reason :) The IEEE paper is much better than any contest it is contribution of novelty. So please wait, one day the source will be available but not yet. In few months...