Up, Up, Up: $2,000 More Seed Funding For Hackaday Prize Entries

Getting a project off the ground often means an up-front investment in parts. Hackaday is upping our efforts to smooth out that obstacle for those who want to Build Something That Matters. Seed funding for the 2018 Hackaday Prize is simple, enter your Open Hardware design, share it far and wide so that a lot of people will show their admiration with a ‘like’ on the project page. If you’re in the Prize competition, you get a dollar for each like to help jump-start the build phase. If you haven’t entered, you get to encourage and reward the projects that inspire you most.

This year has started off like a rocket. We’ve already passed the $4,000 seed funding limit and you still have until a week from Monday to take part in this seed funding. With so much excitement around this first challenge, Supplyframe, Hackaday’s parent company, is raising the pot to a total of $6,000. That means there’s more up for grabs. Enter your project now. If you’ve already done that, polish up your presentation and show it around to your friends and on social media. Entries with the most likes will get a dollar for every like up to $200 max, or until we undoubtedly reach the new limit once again. Don’t delay, it’s time to Build Something that Matters!

Seed funding is a big deal as we found out with Alex Williams, the 2018 Grand Prize Winner. He mentioned that the money really helped him with early build costs, and the interest from the community inspired him to keep up development throughout the contest. Help us give away this extra funding and inspire the next generation of finalists by commenting on and upvoting great entries!

17 thoughts on “Up, Up, Up: $2,000 More Seed Funding For Hackaday Prize Entries

  1. Asking for a bit of clarity.”The projects that get the most likes get 1$ per like” Does that mean if you just got a few you won’t get anything? what is the cutoff line? I understand you are trying for some more spin but that seems rather cruel…..Why did you change it from “If you get a like you get 1$ for each like”?

    1. The rules say that (up to) the top 20 will be selected to receive a prize of up to $200, $1/like:

      Community Vote Prize: Subject to verification of eligibility and compliance with these Official Rules, up to twenty (20) Community Vote winners will be selected to win a cash prize of up to $200 , as detailed below.

      1. Sponsor will evaluate the Challenge Round 1 entries based on their technical merit, approving only those entries that meet the Challenge Round 1 entry requirements and conform to the Challenge Round 1 theme (described above).
      2. Challenge Round 1 entries approved at Sponsor’s sole discretion will then be selected by ranking the most “likes” on their Project Profile at the close date of that Challenge Round (i.e., 7:00 am P.D.T. on April 23, 2018).
      3. The selected winners will receive $1 for each “like” on their Project Profile, up to a limit of $200 .

      1. right. could be thanking them *for* seed money, instead would rather assume and complain… draw lines between “us and them”… and that, my friend, is *exactly* where the line is drawn between folk who get it and those who don’t; You drew that line. It’s all up to you, my friend. You could just as easily cross, or maybe even erase that line. Which “side” would you like to be on? Many/most would be happier with yah on this side, and I think HaD would, as well, judging by the fact they just threw in an extra $2000, on top of the already $4000, to that very cause. OTOH, if you’d rather stay on that imaginary “side,” more moolah for the optimists ;)
        So… Maybe I shouldn’t be sharing this. But I been you… still am at times… hard not to be. it sucks. wouldn’t wish it on anyone. Nice to be rewarded for not being a pessimist… pessimism is exhausting, even to the pessimist. Do something considerate, receive considerateness, put in X effort to feeling better, receive 2X the better feeling. A two-for-one. kinda a bit like the ol’ golden-rule, or karma, except that only once a year (actually twice, this year!) it’s actually made tangible, financially-so! Even if you had no need/want for the seed money, it’d be reasonable, nah, considerate to be thankful moments like these exist for others… because of these moments’ existence, folk drawing lines like you have are given tangible opportunity to erase that line… and that makes things better for everyone. But, again, if you’d rather stay on that side of that imaginary line, we’ll gladly take your money.

          1. funny thing about reality, there’s the people-portion, which can have many interpretations, many motives… there’s also a non-people portion of reality, some call it fate, god, the universe, karma, physics, random chance, dumb-luck… plausibly the matrix… often it boils down to one’s own [mis]understanding/perception.
            This particular instance is very much the people-portion. And the reality of it may be less well-intentioned than an optimist might think, or maybe not.
            Thing is, the non-people-portion of reality does actually exist, whether you believe it or not. And it seems to have a corellation with one’s views on the people-portion.
            E.G. Case-in-point: To you, it seems, reality consists of seed funding that is only given to the top 20 projects, $200 apiece. If you read it differently you’ll see that was based on the $4000 pot. $200*20=$4000. That’s the reality you seem to perceive, not The Reality. But, you failed to read/acknowledge/understand the portion about each like being equated to $1, (up to $200) *until the pot runs out* and the words “up to”.
            The reality is that during this seed-funding phase *every* project that gets ‘likes’ gets a dollar for every like, until the seed funding runs out. So, when it was limited to $4000, there was a chance that up to 20 projects would be seeded up to a limit of $200 apiece. But in reality there are far more projects with likes, so, in reality, a few projects will get $200, and dozenS more projects will get less than $200, but will still get money.
            The ‘people-portion’ of reality can’t always corroborate everyone’s understanding of reality with their intent; there are far too many perspectives out there to explain for each and every one’s sense of reality. OTOH, checking the ‘leaderboard’ one might be able to piece reality together on one’s own, rather than fall-back on misperceived-reality, and come to the conclusion that reality is more favorable than perceived.
            That-said, if you’ve got a project entered, list it here, I’ll give you a dollar (if you don’t dilly-dally).

          2. Your math is frivolous.The maximum number of people who have viewed my project have already weighed in.(actually more looked at it then they should have) Therefore no matter how much money is still remaining there is nobody left who has not viewed it and made the decision not to like it. Its all in the statistics.. You also seem to think I am disgruntled or angry. Quite the contrary. You see being a realist coming into this contest gives you beforehand insight that odds are not in my favor to win with my entries.My stuff is built for my enjoyment not to win a contest. I just enter it…like a lottery ticket.Since I don’t play real lotteries, this is my outlet for gambling. This is not supposed to be bloodsport. Ad being an optimist or a pessimist makes no difference in this contest-you can believe in hobbits, fairy’s or whatever you like-It will not help your odds. A cool project beats wishing any day here. My projects are just not that cool….but they are mine.
            In any event-I just asked a question to the OP. And I thanked the people you pointed out needed thanking since I posted the question….Are we done here?

          3. lol. sure. I like your sense of reality, there’s so little responsibility. do you get to spend your day not thinking of anyone but yourself? Here’s some pixie dust for yah: if you spent this extra bonus time liking others’/strangers’ projects, you might get some likes back, increasing your alleged maximum… or have all your ‘not cool’ submissions maxed out at $200?

          4. I in fact liked bunches of projects. Think of anyone but myself? ….seems appropriate coming from somebody named “duh” Guess you just hide behind some nym(and a highly unflattering one at that) but it suits you perfect. Get some reality…and stopping spending so much time analyzing what you think about everyone else and trolling the comments section.
            Now we done here?

          5. *sigh*
            Apologies, Mike, and HaD crew, this was not at all how I visualized today’s commentary progressing. Though, that’s not at all a passing of “blame”, clearly I went overboard. Guess you know, now, why I never applied as a writer, and haven’t been commenting much these past years! Back to the ol’ soldering iron.

            Mark, apologies, as well. Good luck with your projects.

  2. Are there any updates on the seed funding? If it still is 200 dollars max for 20 people max – then it’s still 4000 dollars you pay at max. The top 20 all together is at 1739 atm.

Leave a Reply to Mark MillerCancel reply

Please be kind and respectful to help make the comments section excellent. (Comment Policy)

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.