Revival of Model Of The Week

Ben_Misegades

Hello all

I would like to gauge interest in bringing back the Model Of The Week contests in some capacity. At the present time, OS staff are not in a position to actively support this, though I have been encouraged to pursue this revival on my own.

Without OS directly supporting contests like this, weekly prizes of forum badges and Amazon gift cards won't be available. That being said, I may fund a gift card prize out of my own pocket on a monthly basis.

The rough guidelines of the contest would be as follows:

- At the beginning of the week/month I would create a new forum thread
- Entrants would post a link to the model that they would like to share. Including a screenshot would be good. Files must be made public. 
- The public votes on entries using the "vote up/vote down" buttons.
- At the end of the voting period the post (or posts) with the most up votes wins. 

If people are interested, please make a post saying so, and also if you think this would be better on a weekly or monthly basis.

3dcad

+1 for monthly MOTM

I'm sure Onshape could send out something for the winners like once-twice a year. The most important thing would be to post only contest model posts and keep discussion on another threads.. Maybe @lougallo will code some special thread for this after few rounds

I think posts should have short description of complexity, problems that were solved etc. sometimes there can be imported model with something very special made around it - that should be commented so the beauty stands out beside imports. Sometimes the beauty can be movement, tell it, otherwise the screenshot will not encourage to open actual model.
That said, I wouldn't restrict using imports as part of contest model but made in Onshape would the thing to evaluate.

100% imports should be restricted.

Great idea @ben_misegades435 if you have time to host such.

Most of us propably use cad for work and those models can not be made public, there could be another category for these so that only few screenshots and description is posted. No rewards for this category (other than respect of community).

brian_jordan

I'm not sure that I'll ever have anything to submit but looking at other efforts is helpful and often inspirational so I would like to see a monthly or even bi-monthly contest.

Ben_Misegades

@3dcad thank you for the suggestions, I would say that I agree with everything you've said.

I will wait until I see more response, however, before moving any further...I don't want to have to announce Rami as winner every time 

florian

Cool Idea! I'm totally in for voting. And feature script features should be allowed as entries as well

john_mcclary

+1

Tim_Rice

+1

My vote would be for monthly contests to allow for higher quality entries.

jrs_spedley

A few weeks ago I did enjoy looking throught the past thread of winners.  Good to showcase what can be done.
Monthly, perhaps with occasional best in catagory.

Ben_Misegades

Alright, I think I'm satisfied with the amount of interest. Even though not a lot of people have posted, the thread has received a decent amount of views.

I will start this off as a Model of the Month contest, beginning April 1st. Quick notes on my intentions:

- I will create a new thread in this forum, titled something like "MOTM April 2017"
- Entry conditions etc. will be the first post in the thread
- Entrants will post in the thread with a link to the file that they would like to enter
- All entries must be publicly shared
- Voting is done with the "Vote Up" and "Vote Down" buttons already built into the forum, though I would ask that people do not downvote
- At the end of the month, the highest voted contribution is declared winner. I intend to provide a gift certificate or something as prize. Please don't expect too much as this is coming out of my own pocket.
- I may create a second thread titled something like "MOTM April 2017 Feedback" at the same time so that the actual contest thread remains clear of clutter and commentary.

Am I missing anything important?

owen_sparks

Sounds good to me :-)

OwS

john_mcclary

@ben_misegades435

Will there be a theme for the model each month? (no obligations of course)
like space / robotics / architecture .. etc. Something to spark an idea.
or just whatever we can think of on the fly at the beginning of the month?

To keep it fair to new users; should these be fresh designs with a creation date starting 4/1. although you could copy and cheat and nobody could prove it anyways..
Or does any past project count?

Thanks for fronting this by the way.

I may be speaking out of turn but you can keep the gift card. I'd like to see if OS is willing to let you add some MOTM badges to the forums instead, more of a long term honor IMO. (maybe it's just the achievement hunter in me..)

Ben_Misegades

@john_mcclary it is my understanding that the original weekly contests were more to showcase projects that users were already working on, not necessarily to create new projects specifically to win a contest.

Because of that, I don't believe that it matters at all how new or old the project is, nor does the "theme" or industry matter, either.

In the past OS provided forum badges, and I'm sure that if there is enough participation it is something they'd consider bringing back, too.

3dcad

I would like to see short description of what should I look when I open the model, is it just beautiful or is there some nice movement I should try - or is it something amazing created using only few features or feature script or so.. mention the thing you struggled the most to get it done!

Is it ok to put entries any time of month? The good thing about forum votes is that you can undo if you change your mind. It would be nice if people would use only single vote for one of the participants. I agree with @ben_misegades435 about down votes - they don't make anyone happy.

john_mcclary

3dcad said:

I would like to see short description of what should I look when I open the model, is it just beautiful or is there some nice movement I should try - or is it something amazing created using only few features or feature script or so.. mention the thing you struggled the most to get it done!

Is it ok to put entries any time of month? The good thing about forum votes is that you can undo if you change your mind. It would be nice if people would use only single vote for one of the participants. I agree with @ben_misegades435 about down votes - they don't make anyone happy.

Agreed, sometimes it's hard to appreciate someone's work, when you don't know the pain that went into making it.

The best models look the simplest... But take a huge amount of effort to make it that way.

But in the end I think people will vote on what looks the coolest ;p

Ben_Misegades

My suggestion is that for an entry, it would be best to post 1) the link 2) a screenshot and 3) a short description

And yes @3dcad entries are permitted any time of the month. Obviously, the earlier someone would post their entry, the more people are likely to look at it. I will make sure to post more exact dates and times in regard to the cutoff for entries/voting in the actual thread.