Hey Ryan,

Up thread a bit I think we were kicking around an entry deadline of end of February or something like that to give everyone time after the holiday craziness to build their entries. A definite date hasn't been set yet though, as I haven't settled on a set of rules and Our Mostly Benevolent Blue Overlord is looking to secure a sponsor and prizes.

As for the rest, that's exactly the sort of thing I'm looking to get in this thread.... How do you all want to structure the competition? The rules above are just what I came up with and I have no problem changing them around a bit (or a lot) if someone else has a better idea. Plus the sponsor might want to change a thing or two, so these rules are by no means carved in stone.

I don't know if we'll get terribly many entries, so I don't know how well awards for individual criteria will work (hence the weighted composite scoring above).

Personally, I don't mind cannibalized parts but I'd probably want to see a bit of a penalty for doing so beyond a certain point. For my prototypes I use RE Durangos, but RE Comets and CCH Aliens also disassemble easily. FWIW, the spec cam I'll be providing instructions for will be entirely DIY with parts mostly from McMaster-Carr.

EDIT- Oh, I should probably point out that I've dropped the target size that we batted around a bit earlier since scoring based on expansion ratio takes care of the issue I was worried about with giant nuts. so feel free to do anything up to ~6.5" expanded size, if you are so inclined. The spec cam instructions will probably be for something ~2" expanded, depending on how the cost works out for the materials.