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Hackaday Prize 2019 Hack Chat

The challenge of design for manufacturing

Wednesday, April 17, 2019 12:00 pm PDT Local time zone:
Hack Chat
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Majenta Strongheart will be joining the Hack Chat on Wednesday, April 17 at noon PDT.

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Join Hack ChatThe 2019 Hackaday Prize was just announced, and this year the theme is designing for manufacturing. The hacker community has come a long, long way in the last few years in terms of the quality of projects we turn out. Things that were unthinkable just a few short years ago are now reduced to practice, and our benches and breadboards are always stuffed with the latest and greatest components and modules, all teaming up to do wondrous things. But what about the next step? Do you have what it takes to turn that mess o' wires into a product? What skills do you need to add to your repertoire to make sure you can actually capitalize on your prototype - or more importantly, to get your ideas into someone else's hands where they can actually do some good?

Join us on the Hack Chat as we discuss:

  • The importance of designing for manufacturing;
  • What tools we have available to turn prototypes into projects;
  • How the Hackaday Prize is set up this year, and why the theme was selected; and
  • Why should you participate in the 2019 Hackaday Prize?

  • Hack Chat Transcript, Part 2

    Lutetium04/17/2019 at 20:02 0 comments


    scott.mcgimpsey12:40 PM
    Design and learning is awesome, but applying that to a wider world of competition has a lot of attractive elements too. Customer research, DFM, etc are just new design constraints and considerations, and they can be a lot of fun as well.

    deshipu12:40 PM
    @Frank Buss well, the goal of the prize is obviously to get more users to hackaday and to get them hacking

    Scott Swaaley12:40 PM
    @Majenta Strongheart - Gotcha. Loud and clear. More emphasis on practicality and solving real problems, less on dancing cats.

    Frank Buss12:41 PM
    isn't the dancing cat the project with the most likes?

    todbot12:41 PM
    But still, where "customer" could be "my middle-school students" or "dogs at my dog park", I believe

    Andrew Sowa12:42 PM
    Is there any details on the mentors and how that will work or was that referencing the community as mentors in a general sense?

    deshipu12:42 PM
    or "people who like videos of dancing cats"

    Kris Winer12:42 PM
    Sales volume is the validation of utility, or one of them. Had plenty of "great" products that didn't sell well, and some dumb things that sold out. Hard to tell up front.

    deshipu12:42 PM
    @Andrew Sowa THAT!

    Frank Buss12:42 PM
    a dancing cat would probably sell very well

    Scott Swaaley12:42 PM
    @scott.mcgimpsey - yes, and this new prompt means more DFM will be in the Hackaday universe, which means more people will learn about it. Seems on brand and on mission :)

    scott.mcgimpsey12:43 PM
    @Majenta Strongheart @Frank Buss That's a great point -- Does the popularity of a project weigh into the judges decisions for Semi-finalists or finalist winners?

    Majenta Strongheart12:43 PM
    @Andrew Sowa yes! I'm excited to share that we will be announcing our judges and mentors very soon and the schedule to the mentor's office hour sessions will be posted on the Hackaday Prize contest page and on our facebook so you can start getting direct feedback from our experienced mentors. Mentors will be hosting office hours type video sessions with 6-8 entrants a session so be sure to sign up once the schedule is posted :)

    Andrew Sowa12:44 PM
    That sounds very helpful

    Dan Maloney12:45 PM
    @Majenta Strongheart - Will the videos of the office hour sessions be available after the fact? Might have some valuable mateial for everyone.

    isaacporras joined  the room.12:45 PM

    Majenta Strongheart12:45 PM
    @Scott Swaaley Likes will not be factored in the judging process

    deshipu12:45 PM
    facebook?

    deshipu12:45 PM
    what's that?

    Dan Maloney12:46 PM
    Something all the grandparents us, I think.

    Arsenijs12:46 PM
    oh no not f*ceb*ok

    Majenta Strongheart12:46 PM
    @Dan Maloney Yes! A recording of the video sessions will be available to the community afterwards

    Dan Maloney12:46 PM
    Schweet

    deshipu12:46 PM
    @Dan Maloney like myspace, but invades your privacy?

    Dan Maloney12:49 PM
    It's a feature...

    Arsenijs12:50 PM
    I'm sure MySpace got upgraded. A "let's collect some data and earn money on the side" feature sounds like something a MySpace investor could accept, "everyone's doing it" and all

    deshipu12:52 PM
    do we need to dress up for the mentor videos?

    todbot12:52 PM
    just from the waist up

    Arsenijs12:52 PM
    This year's Prize got quite an overhaul, TBH. No World Create Day, no seed money like we're used to, no "stages". I'm wondering if I should try to participate and put some effort in, purely for the "how will this work out?" factor

    Dan Maloney12:52 PM
    As long as your camera is above the desk ;-)

    deshipu12:53 PM
    @Arsenijs there are seed money

    Arsenijs12:53 PM
    "waist up" it's hardware we're talking here, there's a chance of "ah, we do indeed have a prototype to show, I'll go get fetch it from another room"

    Arsenijs12:53 PM
    sorry, I mean, the seed money changed and IIRC is for the top 20

    skitchin12:54 PM
    Sir, we said hardware, not software

    deshipu12:54 PM
    I...

    Read more »

  • Hack Chat Transcript, Part 1

    Lutetium04/17/2019 at 20:01 0 comments

    Dan Maloney12:00 PM
    Hello everyone, welcome to the Hack Chat. Let's get started with today's chat, which is all about the 2019 Hackaday Prize. @Majenta Strongheart is here to tell us all about it and answer your questions.

    Majenta, can you kick things off with a little about what your role is in the Prize?

    Dan joined  the room.12:01 PM

    Majenta Strongheart12:01 PM
    Of course, thanks for the welcome!

    Majenta Strongheart12:04 PM
    I'm the lead coordinator for the Prize this year, but of course work with a ton of amazing people to help it run smoothly. As the Staff Designer and Community Programming Coordinator at the DesignLab I'm excited to tie in more of the DesignLab's resources and network to the prize :)

    Scott Swaaley12:05 PM
    Hi @Majenta Strongheart ! Is it ok if I start with a question?

    Majenta Strongheart12:05 PM
    @Scott Swaaley yes!

    Frank Buss12:06 PM
    I don't like meta-questions

    deshipu12:06 PM
    I don't like meta-likes

    Paul Stoffregen12:06 PM
    I like meta meta

    Scott Swaaley12:06 PM
    We noticed in the Hackaday Prize 2019 FAQ what looked like some copy-paste from last year's competition. Specifically, mentions of hardware being open source. Is that a big part of this year's evaluation?

    Scott Swaaley12:07 PM
    Excerpt: "Optimally, we would like to see open source drivers, hardware, and development tools; the final project would also be licensed as open source (using the wide range of licenses that are possible)." Not sure if that is copy-paste leftover or intentional.

    Majenta Strongheart12:08 PM
    Open source will definitely be an important part of the criteria for the judges this year

    scott.mcgimpsey joined  the room.12:09 PM

    deshipu12:09 PM
    How does that work with making it a successful product? Won't it be immediately drowned by clones?

    morgan12:09 PM
    but isn't that the true sign of success?

    Paul Stoffregen12:10 PM
    Would you say the contest has changed these last couple years, more towards an emphasis on professional (perhaps startup) hardware, rather than "hacks"?

    Scott Swaaley12:10 PM
    @deshipu - Yeah, that seems to contrast a little with the product development focus.

    deshipu12:10 PM
    depends on how judges define it

    Majenta Strongheart12:10 PM
    However projects are not required to be open source to be eligible for finals

    Frank Buss12:10 PM
    how can open source be a criteria, if it is not listed as the 4 evenly weighted criteria in the rules?

    scott.mcgimpsey12:10 PM
    Re: Open source, that same FAQ states: "But everyone should enter the Open Hardware Design Challenge too" -- Are there separate sub-challenges like last year?

    Jakob Wulfkind12:11 PM
    @Frank Buss, I'm guessing that it's a condition of entry

    Scott Swaaley12:12 PM
    @Frank Buss +5 points

    Majenta Strongheart12:13 PM
    Often products on the market can benefit from being open source, or having elements be open source, you can get excellent feedback, upgrades, and solutions to challenges your product might be facing. For example last year's winner Haddington Dynamics has been able to advance their product Dexter thanks to their work being open source.

    Frank Buss12:13 PM
    if it is open source, there will be a cheap Chinese clone for it faster than I could sell my product :-)

    Arsenijs12:13 PM
    not necessarily. Nobody has bothered to clone the ZeroPhone yet =D

    deshipu12:14 PM
    or µGame :(

    Arsenijs12:14 PM
    (inb4 it's not that good)

    deshipu12:14 PM
    even when I offered them to help with that

    [skaarj]12:14 PM
    One from me: I noticed there are a lot of projects describing toys, and only a few serious stuff such as medical devices, power supplies, laboratory tools and of course retro hardware which involves a lot of knowledge, hardware + software level 99000+ wizardry and tons of $ when applied in industry due to the proven immunity to latest virus threats.

    I would like to ask which are the criteria for selecting the projects:...

    Read more »

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