Steven,
How the challenges have been issued in the past:
1. An announcement is made: such as "goober.com's New Year's Scratchbuild Challenge begins on 1 Jan, 201X at 12:00 am GMT"
2. The topic(s) are revealed: "This year's subjects will be...." - The first one I did was called "open" - ie anything you wanted to build. The last time was something like "trackside structure, mini-scene, or non-revenue car"
3. The basic rules were laid out.
a. Always to be a brand new project, not something you were already working on - part of the fun is seeing the creativity folks show when pulling great ideas out of thin air.
b. monetary cap - maximum allowable spent. - Usually less than $25... sometimes as little as $10. Typically you are allowed stuff you have onhand + 1 tube of glue + 1 jar of paint + 1 fresh hobby knife blade + whatever you could trade for, beg, borrow or steal as 'free', everything else counted towards your monetary cap. You're expected to be honest, and admit if you went over. Trying to stock up and buy detail parts ahead of time is often money ill-spent because you don't know what the topic will be. OTOH, a large scrapbox (yours or your buddy's) can be a gold mine.....
c. time limit. "contest will end XX Jan, 201X at 11:59PM" - The first one was 2 weeks, everybody complained it wasn't enough time, but a lot of guys managed to make some really neat items. The last time they decided on 6 weeks, and almost 1/3 of the folks still didn't finish on time.... I think the 2-3 week timeframe is more realistic, simply because you don't procrastinate as much.
4. Optional special rules - something like "25% recycled materials", or "related to animals", "whimsical", "must include 1 figure", or whatever.
5. Either during the challenge, or within 24hours of the completion of the time period, each of the participants post a short build log (titled "Challenge 2012; + what it is") with photos, explanation, plus a spent total....
6. Then a voting thread is set up in the 'general' forum (to get the widest exposure) with a single pic of each project, and a link to the log thread for it, and all the active members will be asked to vote.
a. The usual categories are, "best of show", "most original", "best use of materials", etc. If there are first time builders, they'll often get a 2 or 3 vote handicap (agreed to by the participants) for just being brave enough to try.
b. The usual time for voting is 1 week - to allow folks to go over the projects, and for who aren't real regular to vote, but most of the votes are usually cast in the first 2-3 days.
c. Votes are tallied, and the winners announced - if you gents want prizes, you'll have to come up with those, softcover train books are often good prizes, because I can't afford international postage.
It's really not as complicated as it sounds.
How the challenges have been issued in the past:
1. An announcement is made: such as "goober.com's New Year's Scratchbuild Challenge begins on 1 Jan, 201X at 12:00 am GMT"
2. The topic(s) are revealed: "This year's subjects will be...." - The first one I did was called "open" - ie anything you wanted to build. The last time was something like "trackside structure, mini-scene, or non-revenue car"
3. The basic rules were laid out.
a. Always to be a brand new project, not something you were already working on - part of the fun is seeing the creativity folks show when pulling great ideas out of thin air.
b. monetary cap - maximum allowable spent. - Usually less than $25... sometimes as little as $10. Typically you are allowed stuff you have onhand + 1 tube of glue + 1 jar of paint + 1 fresh hobby knife blade + whatever you could trade for, beg, borrow or steal as 'free', everything else counted towards your monetary cap. You're expected to be honest, and admit if you went over. Trying to stock up and buy detail parts ahead of time is often money ill-spent because you don't know what the topic will be. OTOH, a large scrapbox (yours or your buddy's) can be a gold mine.....
c. time limit. "contest will end XX Jan, 201X at 11:59PM" - The first one was 2 weeks, everybody complained it wasn't enough time, but a lot of guys managed to make some really neat items. The last time they decided on 6 weeks, and almost 1/3 of the folks still didn't finish on time.... I think the 2-3 week timeframe is more realistic, simply because you don't procrastinate as much.
4. Optional special rules - something like "25% recycled materials", or "related to animals", "whimsical", "must include 1 figure", or whatever.
5. Either during the challenge, or within 24hours of the completion of the time period, each of the participants post a short build log (titled "Challenge 2012; + what it is") with photos, explanation, plus a spent total....
6. Then a voting thread is set up in the 'general' forum (to get the widest exposure) with a single pic of each project, and a link to the log thread for it, and all the active members will be asked to vote.
a. The usual categories are, "best of show", "most original", "best use of materials", etc. If there are first time builders, they'll often get a 2 or 3 vote handicap (agreed to by the participants) for just being brave enough to try.
b. The usual time for voting is 1 week - to allow folks to go over the projects, and for who aren't real regular to vote, but most of the votes are usually cast in the first 2-3 days.
c. Votes are tallied, and the winners announced - if you gents want prizes, you'll have to come up with those, softcover train books are often good prizes, because I can't afford international postage.
It's really not as complicated as it sounds.