August '07 WINNERS!!

[Dave]

We've been through a lot of sweat and blood here at Trossen Robotics, but nothing prepared us for a trial like this. Seriously, we wanted to give first prize to almost everyone who entered. We couldn't though, so instead we employed our objective grading system; rating each entry on a scale of 0-5 in the categories of Wow-Factor, Ingenuity, Creative Spunk & Documentation. Each TR employee graded the projects individually, then everything was totalled up and averaged. In the end, we had 3 prize winners, and 3 that were soo close to third place that we had to give them honorable mentions.

Without further ado, here they are:

First Prize: $100 Trossen Robotics gift certificate goes to...
Vaughn's Virtual Crib home automation/security system (http://forums.trossenrobotics.com/showthread.php?t=1112)
Average score: 4.34/5
Comments: Lots of in-depth work with both hardware and software, combining everything seamlessly into a very immersive project. You turned your house into a robot, dude. We like that.

Second Prize: $50 Trossen Robotics gift certificate goes to...
jonathanuwguy's Officebot (http://forums.trossenrobotics.com/showthread.php?t=1106)
Average score: 4.25/5
Comments: It's a flexible, feature-rich telepresence platform. Also, it has a nerf missile launcher. Fun stuff.

Third Prize: $25 Trossen Robotics gift certificate goes to...
JonHylands' Bioloid Gripper (http://forums.trossenrobotics.com/showthread.php?t=1069)
Average score: 3.91/5
Comments: This one impressed us because it involved microcontroller programming, mechanical design and fabrication, integration with the Bioloid serial network, and it's something we would be likely to sell if it were a commercial product.

Honorable Mentions (in no particular order)
bmouring's Lunar Rover Robot (http://forums.trossenrobotics.com/showthread.php?t=1103)
streetpictures' Evil Babies (http://forums.trossenrobotics.com/showthread.php?t=1108)
Brandon121233' Wall Avoiding Robot (http://forums.trossenrobotics.com/showthread.php?t=1102)


Great work, guys. You three runners up will each receive a discount on your next order. We'll email you the coupon codes shortly.

To everyone else: Thanks for participating! September's contest is open for submissions, so go ahead and post more projects.

BIG NEWS HERE: For September's contest, we're doubling the prizes! That's right; first place will get $200, $100 will go to second place, and third will get $50. That's serious business, people!

Remember, folks: we really like detailed documentation, pictures, and videos. Put as much information in the thread as you can. We like to see content concentrated in the threads themselves, rather than linked to, because it makes it easier to get the "big picture" of what went into the project. Matt and Alex will undoubtedly chime in with their own pointers, so I'll leave it at that.

[Alex]

Excellent job to everyone! I gotta say, I loved most all of the projects. The Evil Babies submission I wanted to win just for the Talking Heads playing almost perfectly in sync in the video. I had nightmares for weeks after I watched that video;) The Wall Avoiding Robot would have won hands down if we were only voting on documentation. Incredible job on that post Brandon, and thanks for better introducing us to the Instructable's style of doing things!


In response to Dave's last comment, we have updated the Submit Your Contest and WIN! (http://www.trossenrobotics.com/contest.aspx) contest page to include the updated prizes and better cover what we are looking for in submissions. Good luck this month and as always, please let us know if you have any questions at all:D (http://www.trossenrobotics.com/contest.aspx)

[Vaughn]

Thanks guys!

Vaughn

[JonHylands]

That's really cool, thanks guys :-)

- Jon

[joelpietersen]

you guys are really cool and great. THANKS! :D

[Quantum]

hmmm...
No your the cool guy. Thank you for thanking us. Thanks!