Astronaut Or Astronot? Nobody Won The Voters’ Lottery (This Week, Anyway)

Yesterday we said we’d be giving away an awesome oscilloscope to a random person on Hackaday Projects if they have voted for their favorite project in The Hackaday Prize. We’re doing one of these a week, and today, at least, nobody won.

We’re going to be doing this every week, so register at Hackaday Projects and vote for your favorite projects entered in The Hackaday Prize. We’ll do this again next week.

48 thoughts on “Astronaut Or Astronot? Nobody Won The Voters’ Lottery (This Week, Anyway)

  1. Would vote more if it didn’t suck. Why not just put a vote button on each projects page that can be clicked to place a vote. As it is you have to refresh 100’s of times to get something that is even remotely (IMHO) related to the goal of “Internet of things”. Maybe I’m a purest, but I’m not voting for “The World’s Simplest Hack: iPod Party Amplifier” as an “Internet for things” entry.

    If your only going to give 30 votes then let us pick on the project page. If you want a head to head vote like you have setup, then make the votes unlimited and instead do a binary exclusion until we run out of projects to vote for. Thus making our last vote the vote for our favorite.

    1. Yeah, I used all of my votes before I realized they were limited. I would have been a bit more selective otherwise. I don’t think they did a good job explaining how the votes system was going to work.

      1. I had the same problem.
        I had figured that the vote for any two would be like some sort of bubble sort algorithm.

        Also agree that some projects I refreshed without voting whilst others both deserved a vote.

    2. The contest isn’t about ‘the Internet of Things’. Projects just need to be connected to something; they’ve been deliberately ambiguous about what this means.

      1. You read it your way, I read it mine :). When they announced the competition they mentioned with the rise of the internet of things and then talked about connected. My mind makes the connection and keeps it.

        Any way you want to look at it, the current voting system is flawed in my opinion.

    3. I used my thirty votes last week, and like everyone’s said, refreshed an awful lot to vote for worthy projects. It does indeed seem s bit biased to some projects, and it’s completely uncalled for that this prize drawing thing is happening this late in the voting when most everyone who’s voted has already used all their votes. The voting system needs some work.

      1. I agree, the bubblesort method takes up extra time. I think a simple fix would be to add a ‘skip’ button if neither choice was desired and a ‘both’ if both were deserving.
        If you try to back out of the voting, then another set of random choices is created and you potentially miss the opportunity to vote on perfectly good projects.

        To qualify for the drawing, all you need to have done is vote. Not just those that have voted that day.

      2. If you’ve voted at all at any time since the moment voting entered… i.e., if you’ve used up even one of your thirty votes, then you’re automatically entered… doesn’t matter when you voted. If you’ve used a vote, you’re eligible. Perhaps you should watch the video to see how they’re doing the drawing, it makes it abundantly clear how they tell if the selectee is eligible to win.

        NO ONE has gotten stiffed by HAD… the only people who got stiffed were the ones who have never used any of their votes, and who have thus stiffed themselves.

        Note: Please don’t stiff yourself, the doctors are busy enough as it is…

        1. But if I don’t stiff myself who will?

          Also I completely agree with several previous posters that the voting system is egregiously flawed. The initial impression I got (in liu of a div containing simple instructions on the voting page) was that i was to pick one of these two projects that i’d been pseudo-randomly presented with, then proceed onward until i’d gone through all of the projects. So as I went through i ran into several projects that just didn’t seem worthy- some two at a time- leaving me to pick the lesser of two evils, and a few times I would’ve voted for both had that been a known option..

          Now the process itself may be detailed somewhere on the site, but generally- where it’s being used is where you want at least a link to the information. You don’t comment your code in a completely separate module- why not leave a link to voting information on the page you’re linking everyone to with your ‘go vote now’ campaign?

          The next time project voting comes about- a different system would be nice. Personally I’m a fan of the here’s all the projects, pick vote up the n projects you like best and then just don’t vote on the others. Voting prior to project submission deadline is also something that seems like a terrible idea for reasons that should be obvious- unless of course the votes are like voting in the united states elections- in which case it just doesn’t matter- kinda like the vows at a celebrity wedding.

  2. The voting needs a neither button, lots of times the two options presented to me were IMO not space worthy, not connected and not particularly original. It was a lot of refreshing to get to something that looked good.

    The skip button could also be used for a community score – if everyone skips it then it’s probably uninteresting/unoriginal.

    1. I do hope the judges would have a bigger and final say and follow the contest rules. I mean everybody loves and votes for their blinky-LED- Arduino-chain-saw-quad-copter, but that’s not really the theme of the contest. That would make it unfair for people that actually followed the rules.

    2. Unfortunately, I didn’t even realize that refreshing the page gave me different choices; I saw some projects (that I consistently refused to pick) presented multiple times, and assumed that I was picking from a set of “most followed” or “most skulled” projects. I specifically tried to find a way to vote for Antares, but it didn’t come up. Now that I know more about how the system works, I consider about 25 of my votes to have been wasted.

  3. Same uninteresting projects keep popping up on the front page, so I would say that the pairing is highly biased. I would prefer something a bit more random and not related to when the project was last updated or amount of followers or skulls.

    Would be nice as others have said a “neither” button that eliminates them from my choices. Also may be nice to be able to show a list that I have voted and being able to change my votes if I see much better ones afterwards.

      1. But everyone will say my gaudy, simple, underdeveloped project isn’t good enough to win anything. Although this whole thing is motivating me to do more open hacking than before (spent 100+ bucks on electronics!), the community parts are a bit discouraging.

        Still not sure exactly what I want to make. I liked my micro camera arm idea, but a month seems like such little time for what I need to figure out there and I’m so good at chasing after different random things every day.

  4. I like the idea. You shouldn’t use random.com for the random selection though. Instead, choose any number, multipy it by 2430428, divide by 13, divide by 7, divide by 11, divide by the original number and give the scope to the resultant profile’s owner :)

  5. There appears to be some confusion here, lets see if we can clear it up.

    These prizes for voting can be won by anyone who has voted *at any time* in this voting round. So if you have already voted earlier in the week you were eligible to win in this draw.

    The voting itself gives us an indicator of community opinion on the projects and gives the opportunity to win some t-shirts and other swag in the run up to the main competition. This is not eliminating anyone. So you could still enter a project on August 3rd and be given just as much a chance of winning the main competition as someone who entered weeks ago. You will just have missed out on some smaller prizes along the way.

    Finally, remember that you can enter a project in any state up until August 4th, only after that date will we start elimination rounds. You just need to have registered with your cool idea by then, and made a video pitch to show what you are going to build. You don’t even need to have a prototype built by that point!

    So you have no excuse, go and enter and vote!

    1. >So you have no excuse, go and enter and vote!

      I tried. Had to refresh the page at least 50 times before seeing a project that deserved a vote. I think I’ve seen all of them now, still was only able to give one project a vote…

      1. This is a ranking system, its not about which project deserves a vote, its about which is better A or B. Its subjective obviously, but by voting on any two projects and ranking them against each other we can get a half decent ranking of the projects overall without any ordering bias.

      2. but if the same few projects keeps popping up, I can’t imagine that the rest of the projects get a chance at all. I counted 3 or 4 repeats that I don’t care about in about 10 refreshes.

        So is that going to be counting percentages or actual votes to get a rank? What if the one of 2 projects only ever get 1 vote between them, but that’s 100% of the vote? How can you tell the difference if it were a boring project that only the creator voted for or just that your “random” isn’t all that random and it only get show a handful of times?

    2. Aug 4th is the deadline for entering the contest, but when is the deadline does a project have to be “completed”, i.e. at least to be at some working state to demonstrate some functionality for it to be in the actual contest?

      and when does the videos (the 2 minute one and I think the 5 minute one) have to be done by?

      1. You can get all the details in the official rules: http://hackaday.io/prize/rules-en

        To answer your question, you will need the 2 minute video and your project profile filled out by August 4th in order to qualify at all.

        You need a 5minute video by September 28th demonstrating a near-complete prototype.

        Then if you have made it as far as the finals you will need another 5 minute video demonstrating a completed working prototype by October 27th.

  6. Why wouldn’t you pick someone from the pool of people who have voted?! I would guess there are a lot of inactive user names. Are there limited prizes or do you have a prize for each week?

        1. With a very naive analysis, it’s around a 70% probability we’ll actually be giving a scope away to a random person on hackaday.io before we’re done.

          We’re giving a scope away anyway. if we don’t randomly pick someone from the set of everyone registered on hackaday.io who has voted, we’ll just randomly pick someone from the set of people who have voted. In other words, someone who votes is getting a scope.

  7. I’m pretty mystified as to how complicated this is. I had no idea that refresh was an option. It seems so simple to Just ask people to rank the projects… Given the interface was a choose or lose, lacking other options, I voted for the lesser of two evils when neither project seemed worthy. I feel as if the vote thing wasn’t explained well, or was intuitive enough for me to make my votes really reflect my opinion.

  8. Shut up about the damn voting system, already. There’s nothing wrong with they’ve implemented for what they’re trying to get out of it. (see: http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1eloba/eli5_the_algorithm_in_the_social_network/)

    The only mistake I see is asking folks to vote for the “most space-worthy” rather than explaining that it’s a simple, “pick which one is better”-kind of sorting system as it seems to have created unintended expectations.

    Sheesh! The most awesome contest ever… everything submitted is open, grand prize is a trip to space, the runner-up prizes are still on a level of awesome most hackers only dream of, there’s “hundreds” of other prizes, and now… free swag for the high (community) ranked early bird entries and a FREE $1000 SCOPE FOR SOMEONE WHO DOESN’T EVEN HAVE TO ENTER THE CONTEST. What else do you want?

    Sure, sure, I get the “evil corporate intentions” that would be behind such an awesome contest, but I don’t give a shit. Why? See previous paragraph.

    Maybe it’s just proof that my dad was right on that, “all of the people, all of the time,” thing he used to say… but it’s getting old quick.

    1. We’re going to need your address, Jimmy. You get a t-shirt and some stickers. Email me, because the email you used to make the above comment isn’t valid. Yes, for totally serious.

      Mind if I quote this in next week’s post, too?

    2. >Shut up about the damn voting system, already. There’s nothing wrong with they’ve implemented for what they’re trying to get out of it.

      Oh yeah, I remember them explaining that and telling us that exact information? oh wait, they didn’t! so your guess is as good as anyone else’s guess?

      >The only mistake I see is asking folks to vote for the “most space-worthy” rather than explaining that it’s a simple, “pick which one is better”-kind of sorting system as it seems to have created unintended expectations.

      So Basically people are not even sure what they are voting for?

      >everything submitted is open, grand prize is a trip to space,

      In the featured project yesterday Radu said in the comments his project isn’t open source, he’s not releasing designs and not letting people build their own. (but it’s a featured project in an open design contest?

      essentially the whole thing is being done with the usual finesse we’ve come to expect from Hackaday.

      It’s not made clear how the voting works. (what will your vote count for)
      or what people should be voting for (what judging criteria should you use?)
      or what projects should or should not qualify. (does it need to be open or not?)

      it’s unsurprising that people have questions…!

  9. Admittedly it was late at night when I started. The contest page never had enough to make a good decision as to which was the best project. I had to always open up the detailed project page (time). Then I tried to figure out if the project was even attempted or completed (a big deal for me – don’t think much of just proposals) (more time). Then it looked like I had to vote 30 times for 60 projects (more time). I literally fell asleep at the keyboard 20 projects in.

    You guys need to “wikipeda” your project web pages. This “free form” format is not working.

  10. You know there is no clear instructions on how to vote? When I go to the vote page I only see two projects. If refresh the page I see two more projects. From the posts above it is also not clear if we are suppose to vote for one project out of the two and then do we vote for another on on the next group of two? You have clear instructions for the people entering the contest. But no instructions for the voters

  11. While your in the swag giving bizness. What’s a guy gotta do to get a sticker for the old tool box? Get like 6 awesome projects featured? Cause that clearly didn’t work for me. I’d even pay for one!!

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