Is there any interest in a 'No Holds Barred' Competition to run alongside the OL one?

Before the opinions and arguments flood the OL competition thread, I decided to open a thread to gauge interest in this other competition.
This could run alongside the OL one, and be judged/run by someone who knows a bit about 3d printing - whoever that may be.
Firstly though, I thought it might be interesting to see if there was actually any real interest in such a thing, if there is this is the place to discuss it. Should anyone wish to take up the organisation, feel free.

I hope you mean 'No Holds Barred'.

Maybe lol! Nice, I’ve been saying it wrong for 40+ years…… :person_facepalming:

What would be allowed? 3d printing? CNC machine? Outsourced printing or machining?

This would be cool just from the innovation that we may see…

Good questions. I suspect it kind of opens a can of worms the more you think about it. Most can agree the host is the centre point of the competition, hence the regulations on how it is built.

One gaping hole in the OL comp since day dot is the lack of regulation on electronics yet drivers were being modified from the first comp. One can buy a ready to run driver or modify it or one can buy from Oshpark (all have happened). Is that considered outsourcing? What if I buy a driver and flash it with someone else’s code, is that outsourcing? Justin freely admitted he was’t good with electronics and back in the day when the competition started i wonder how many understood the electronics side of the build was quite unrestricted so to speak.

We are at a day and age now where many things can be “produced” at home. I think this is the crux of the argument. Where to draw the line on what exactly is considered not viable for 99% of the population. Machinery like lathes, milling machines, 3D printers and routers and now more common. The major differences between most home/garage machinery and the new wave of desktop machines is 1. lathes and mills are often manual control metal working machines 2. CNC printers and routers are NOT manual control. This just proves that because something is computer controlled that doesn’t mean it cannot be produced at home. However it does leave the door open to using another persons design/code - plug it into a cnc and produce something you’ve had little input in making. I’m not familiar with cnc so JoshK’s comment that fear is holding us back rings a little bit true. How would one police the designs etc… of cnc productions? If cnc production was outsourced how is that really any different from ordering from oshpark?

I think some of the comments on this subject so far have been quite good - make a separate comp for outsourcing, who wants to go up against the fw3a ? , the guidelines for such a comp would need to be set by those in the know. Just as Justin didn’t understand electronics and placed little restrictions on it I fear the same would happen again if we introduced an outsourcing category. Whether it was part of the comp or not i think we’d all like to see a build come together like that. But for this year at least there will not be a new category for it. Sorry to anyone interested in that idea.

I was just thinking with regard to this outsourcing idea. Instead of outsourcing to external shops and services how about next year a collaboration (or teams) category? Team up with another BLF member. If someone is an electronic guru with poor hand skills he might team up with someone with machinery but poor electronics skills. I feel that one fits the criteria a little more since it’s produced in 2 ‘homes’ and not by a commercial business. Would people be interested in that one?

I think the OP probably meant by “no holds barred” is a truly “open” competition, a type of ‘ran what you brung’ similar to the old, earlier days of drag racing?

I want to be 100% honest - I really like the idea of having a competition that includes outsourcing in some way. I think it really opens up possibilities, as well as accessibility. My nature is to be the guy that takes a good idea and breaks it in every way he can think of in order to refine the idea. So I want to apologize if any of my posts seem to be against the idea, because I really want it to happen and to work well. I’ll also try to remember to contribute suggestions and not just come up with ways to break things :wink:

I want to come back to the accessibility part. I think that’s really the most important thing we can try to remember here. As I understand it - and someone please help me out if I get things wrong, since it’s before my time - Old Lumens found all kinds of scrappy ways to make lights. He also ended up with a lathe, though I seem to remember reading that it had to be crowd-funded and that he didn’t end up keeping it for some reason (possibly legal/financial?). Anyway, this is all to get to the point: not everyone has the ability to really make lights from scratch. While OL may have found scrappy ways to make lights out of stuff that others might consider junk, it still took a decent amount of know-how and tools to get there. Before I bought my house, I didn’t have either the money nor the space for real tools. I had some soldering and electronics tools, and even those had to be packed up and tucked in the laundry closet if they weren’t in active use. And having a work area was even worse - I had to move most of my stuff off my computer desk to clear a small work space. Now I’m lucky to have a lot of hand tools and stuff, mostly as a result of becoming a homeowner and tackling a bunch of home improvement projects. But at the same time, the idea of owning even a nice compact CNC setup, let alone owning a lathe and other machine shop tools (plus learning how to use all of it!) sounds like it might never be in reach. I’d have to build a shed and run electric out to it!

I love the addition of the modified light category. It’s where I would’ve been competing this year if I hadn’t had the kind of life changes over the past year that have left me lucky enough to be able to enter the hand-made category. It brings accessibility and variety to the competition. Just last year’s contest alone showed a lot of creativity, and mods I wouldn’t have thought of. So people can definitely get creative and enter into the competition in just about any way they can figure out.

I really love this idea. Of course, if I were on a team with someone, I’d probably want to make two so we could both keep one of them. But it would be really cool to team up with someone that can do the things I can’t, and I hope I’d bring something to the team too :wink: I’d be scared about Australia developing a power team or two, though :stuck_out_tongue:

That said - I still think the “outsourced” idea could be fun. We could have a CNC and a 3D-print category, designs must be your own and wholly original. The judging categories could give points for things like doing the finishing work yourself, for showing your design process through screenshots, etc.

Sorry guys this slipped my attention, sorry. Yes no holds barred = anything goes.
There is no can of worms to open, as anything goes. There is a regular OL compo with limitations - this one was suggested after JoshK was told he couldn’t do this or that in the OL compo.
I only suggested it (I’m not running it - I suggested JoshK could), so I thought I’d find out if there is any interest…… which it would seem there isn’t after all.