I have arrived home safely, and I’ll spare you the long and boring story of how horribly my airline experiences were, both directions. The contest was delightful. Not only did I get to watch the teams compete, I got to meet people that I’ve wanted to meet for a long time.  The judges and shop monitors were a delight to talk with and work with. There are some great daily recap videos on the creation website, but I can’t embed them.

You’re probably wondering who won. Well, that was announced after I left. The public hadn’t even begun to vote on people’s choice (we weren’t even finished building the sign with the voting buttons!).

The judges were from all different areas of expertise. We had a form to fill out for each project that had several different values. There was functionality, aesthetics, resourcefulness, and some other stuff I can’t remember right now. [Greg] put together the criteria and I think he did a fantastic job at making the judging fair and balanced.

Judges Choice: MB Labs

They made a cool podium that had a marble style sequencer that was extremely intuitive. This sequencer drove some drums that were being played by actuators ripped from car door locks. It was really cool.

Peoples Choice: 1.21 Jigawatts

This was the vote that came from the crowd. They could walk up and push a button for their choice.

The instrument would work like this:

1. you would spray paint on the white paper (which is on a roll).

2. the machine would pull the paper through it and read it optically.

3. the machine would hit chimes corresponding to the color and position of the paint on the paper.

the instrument

behind the scenes

spaghetti

Teams Choice: I3 Detroit

This was the vote that came from the other teams. This vote took into account things like “how helpful was that team” and “were they pleasant”.

Their instrument simply twirled those tubes that make noise. It didn’t work well for the judging display, but they got some better sound afterwords with a little adjusting. They were a delight to hang out with though, and their idea was really original (no midi!).

I already shared the Pissbot, which you can see in action here, and the Voting sign, which you will see more of once RedBull puts out more images.

There was another side project going on during the event as well. Some custom belt buckles were going to be awarded to someone, but I don’t remember who. Maybe it was for team choice. Here’s a picture of one of those as it was being finished.

And, here is a gallery of random images from the last day. Enjoy.

Here are some official pictures of the event!