Windows Embedded Challenge ROCKS!

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I know I said I'd be blogging on the ce_base team blog now, but I figured my personal blog is a better place for this one as it's more personal in nature.  I just finished two days of serving as a judge for the Windows Embedded Student Challenge.  I had a most wonderful time.  The quality of the work, the innovation, and the energy of the students were simply amazing.  What a diversity of projects from a diverse cross-section of the world!  How energizing to see people take the work I do and build such impressive systems on top of it!  The only disappointing part of the competition was that I didn't have a chance to see all 30 projects.

I also feel somewhat emotional about the event because it was heartbreaking to give some of these teams such disappointments.  Everyone has worked so hard and cares so much.  So to those teams out there who might read this, I want to say that just because you weren't chosen doesn't mean we didn't like your projects, or think that they could become successful products.  In some cases we had to eliminate teams because their projects just weren't 100% ready, or because we felt they didn't adequately describe important aspects of their project during their presentation.  It was clear in many cases that the teams intended to continue working on their projects, in an attempt to build a real commercial product.  I would encourage you all to continue following the dream.  If you want more feedback please do ask for it; we would be happy to help you understand what parts of the project were weak and how to improve on them for the future.

I loved meeting everyone.  Thank you for your hard work, and for sharing it with us.  I wish you all the best of luck, and hope to see you again!  (Maybe next year?)  Stay in touch, and I will see you online.  ;-)

Sue

Comments

  • Anonymous
    June 18, 2005
    Here are some more links with information about the projects and results:

    http://www.immergetech.com/blog/2005/6/18/day-one-wrap-up.html

    https://blogs.msdn.com/mikehall/archive/2005/06/18/430498.aspx

    I'm sure that Ivan Joseph will also post some final information on his blog (http://blogs.msdn.com/ivan_joseph/).

    The final placings were:
    1. Team SAM, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (Australia), with an automated plant watering system.

    2. Chip-de-Carpe Diem, Netaji Subhas Institute of Technology (India), with a system that mines local information from the internet and distributes it over FM radio for use in rural areas.

    3. Alpha, Politehnica University of Bucharest (Romania), with a system for capturing aerial photographs using autonomous blimps.

    4. UNESP, Universidade Estadual Paulista Julio de Mesquita Filho (Brazil), with a public street-blogging project.

    5. Gingko Studio, Nanjing University (China), with a messaging program built on top of the SMS protocol.

    You can see all of these reports on http://www.windowschallenge.com/Finalists.html.
  • Anonymous
    June 20, 2005
    Hey Sloh, it must have been hard judging the projects this year, they were all excellent. I just wanted to say that we've added some more posts about the weekend and encourage everyone to give them a read. The site for our blog is http://www.immergetech.com/blog/ Thanks
  • Anonymous
    June 22, 2005
    I wanted to second Justin's post and say I did not envy your position after seeing the projects. Justin and I had originally been interested in possibly being involved with judging, but were blown away by the quality of projects and had a very difficult time deciding who we thought the winners would be. To all the teams out there - great projects and keep up with your excellent work. If you are looking to start a company feel free to get in touch with us and we will share our experience!
  • Anonymous
    June 22, 2005
    Now I think the thing about windows challenge is that it has shown the participants how to go from idea to code to a prototype. That perhaps will foster even more innovation.

    Way to go.

    Manas Mittal
    Chip - de - Carpe - Diem
    Windows Challenge '05
    New Delhi, India
  • Anonymous
    June 27, 2005
    Yes, the contest really rocked. From so many ideas that came from across the globe spinning the wizzies, to the final products that were seen in the finals, everything seemed great. Thanks and Cheers to the Windows CE team for organizing such an event and helping us all through the tough days.

    Million Thanks
  • Anonymous
    June 27, 2005
    Hey, Sue.
    I am Wei Chen from Gingko Studio of Nanjing University, China. I have just found your blog and felt rather excited. The days in Seattle were indeed memorable. Thanks for your suggestions and I hope we can still communicate with each other in the future.
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    June 13, 2009
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