Again, the competition was very tight and all finished lights were simply awesome! This made judging very difficult, and we had to make tough decisions when arranging the contestants to correct order.
While judging we not only concentrated on what we think was the best light in the competition, but went through all the build threads and systematically gave points based on the following criteria:
Uniqueness/Innovativeness of the build: Is it a one of a kind? Different? Using New methods?
Skill level of the finished build: Does it look like a hack job? Or were the finished parts/assemblies done with skill and care?
Thoroughness of the build thread: Did the builder do a good job of showing and explaining to the forum, how he did the steps in the build?
Documenting also the failures & obstacles: How did the builder solve the inevitable problems? Documenting the obstacles and using the power of the BLF community to solve them is seen as a big plus!
*NEW* Possible new driver design or custom firmware is seen as a plus (especially when shared and open source in a true BLF spirit)
Following the guidelines: Did the builder follow the rules and guidelines written in the contest thread?
As I said, all finished lights were great, so the small details like thoroughness of the build thread and documenting the obstacles were important factors when defining the final order. For example, the winner in the machine made category had less than one point difference to 2nd one! (max total score was 100pts)
Before going to the results, I'd like to thank once more all competitors for their hard work building the lights and documenting their builds for us readers to admire and learn from. Thank You very much!
..and then to results, with selected comments from judges.
Thank every one of you, from the contestants, to _the_ and the judges, to our admin, to all of the BLF members! It was a really great contest once again and I thoroughly enjoyed all of the builds.
Wow! What a great result to wake up to first thing on my day off
Thank you to the judges, sponsors, viewers, organisers, sb, Old Lumens and my fellow participants - the BLF community as a whole. :+1:
It has been an honour, a pleasure and a wonderful learning experience this past four years since I found you.
Well done everyone.
Well, i’ve had my eye on some lights that i would like from Gearbest so i would like to choose the Free light(s) worth $100 from this category (provided by Gearbest)
Thanks for the time and effort put in by all the judges. I did not envy your jobs at all.
To all the sponsors, thanks. :+1:
Congratulations all and thanks. We are all winners here just watching and learning from the creativity put in by all the entrants regardless of the class entered. :heart_eyes:
The post above by Justin, the grand master himself just makes it all worthwhile.
I will take up the kind offer from Gearbest of $50.00 to help cover the costs of a charger I’ve had my eye on since I read HKJ and Buddas review. The GYRFALCON All - 88.
Alright! Thanks to Justin for creating such an exciting event! Thanks to the for organizing it this year. Thanks to all the judges for your time and skill in selecting the winning order. I know it was tough! Thanks to the sponsors, of course. And, thanks to the talented builders for making it so fun to watch!
I’m glad I was able to try my hand at it this year. It was fun! Since the judging is finished now, I’ll go back some time and add all those pictures that I didn’t get uploaded in time, so at least they’ll be there for posterity. I’m really looking forward to next year’s contest now!
Oh, almost forgot, I want to thank fritz specifically for encouraging me to make my own driver. I had no intention of doing it. But, it was fun, and I learned a tremendous amount from it. I couldn’t have done it though, without the help from RBD and PD68, so thanks especially to you guys as well! Your expertise was invaluable and your help made my light possible.
Awesome job everybody, congratulations!! I never cease to be amazed by the collective amount of talent, craftsmanship and just plain creativity that we have on this forum. Many thanks to all the participants (even you didn’t finish, use it for next year!), to the amiable _the_ for the countless hours he put into organizing this, to our sponsors for the generous prizes, to the judges for the long hours they spent poring over the builds, and to all of our members that cheered on the participants during the build process.
Congratulations to all winners and thanks to all who dared entering the contest, finishing it in time or not. It was a joy to read the build threads again. The contest has become a great tradition.
Congratulations to the winners and all other participants! Thanks to everyone who made this awesome event possible. Also thanks to the sponsors, I will certainly keep all of you in mind when I make future purchases. It was great being part of this and learning by doing as well as watching and getting inspired!
I apologise, that is a valid point. Admittedly, I got a little bit more sloppy towards the end due to time shortage. I certainly owe all of you another update with some detailed pictures.
For now here is a sloppy picture of the low mode:
