Thanks, member of the jury :D
The Instructables' Leatherman is a real trophy, I'm delighted I won one!

Mine hasn't left my side in the four years since I won it.

Same here! I use it every single day. I once thought I lost it and was really upset- luckily I found it in the couch. :)

Yay! That's so fancy. Congrats on the big win!

How appropriate that you say to "Man up, and enter the next one!" in a contest that only men have placed in (although there were women among the finalists).

It would seem that one does have to be a man to have a chance.

Please tell me your not trying to pull the sex card. If any of the projects entered by females were worthy to be a finalist, they would be.

That's it, you trolled me hard now I'm going to troll you back. This is the internets after all.

what is your problem

After reading your and sponges' comments I decided to look at the judges. I see what you mean about them winning previously in other contests, but what really struck me was the gender of the winners and the judges.

Every single winner in the 3rd Epilog Challenge was a male or a "robot" (most of which had male photographs as avatars). All but one of the judges (canida) is a male or a "robot" (once again most of which had male photographs as avatars)"*

I looked at the other Epilog challenges, wondering if a woman had ever placed. What I found upset me.

Only one person identified in their profile as a woman has ever placed in the three Epilog contests. During the 2nd Epilog contest jorgegunn was a runner up for her "Voice activated Geo Cache."

How is it that out of 44 possible winners from three Epilog Challenges only one has been a woman? Why did the judge selection for this third contest almost entirely exclude women members? Why were 17 of the 18 judges male in the 3rd Epilog Challenge?

What judging criteria lead to "Wind Lantern: LEDs powered by a vertical axis wind turbine" and "How to Make a Steampunk Corset" not placing, despite their popularity, rating and the amount of votes they received?

Which entries were picked to be finalists by the judges, not by votes, and by what criteria?

I expect answers to my questions and to the other members who have posted on here.

If I have not received a response by Friday I will be contacting Epilog as well as several tech and gender related blogs.

*I could not find a profile for writegirl7 on instructables.

I hate to comment on this simply because I will inevitably come off sounding like grenadier does above; like a bitter runner-up. But fundamentally I completely agree; the protocol described is pretty vague. And given how important that aspect of it is, I am very interested in knowing more- especially for future contests (Are all contests judged the same way?). 

The finalists are mostly technical probably because that is mostly what was voted in, so of course the winners will mostly be techie- with one notable exception: I fully expected "How to Make a Steampunk Corset" to win the laser cutter, so given that it didn't even place, you may have something there. 

As described here, "Each judge rates the entries on a scale of 1 to 9 and we average out the ratings."  This explains quite a bit- this implies that they are not judging entires against each other, but rather in a complete vacuum; effectively rating it against itself. So an instructable that taken against the others doesn't seem like a winner can still place.

By what criteria they were ranked, I don't know. I also don't know why this method was chosen over just putting them in a ranked order, then averaging each judges lists. Any official word on this would be nice.

Again, I am just trying to understand how this works and I fully appreciate my place in this contest. 

Clearly the way to show you should have won is to complain, accuse the judges and instructables of being dishonest, denigrate the winner and others who used arduinos by dismissing their achievement, whine about wining a prize that 90% of the members of instructables would love to win and post multiple negative comments on the winning instructable.

I'm somewhat amazed that most of the people here are responding by complimenting and consoling you, rather than pointing out how terribly inappropriate your behavior is.

Congratulations to all the winners and finalists by the way!

Please stop trolling me.

well now you know, you should have shown how to fry an arduino with high voltage! can i come over and help fry one? oops gave away my next 'tible, lol

You took first prize among 500 entries. That's nothing to sneeze at.

I suppose, but I failed math class this quarter due to all the effort I put into my instructable. Plus I really want to get the electronics hobby going again and the zing would've helped me start that mission. I want a world where kids ask for capacitors for Christmas.

If only my instructable included an arduino. :-( Meh, I'll probably just donate the mig welder to my school.

/me is sad

lol, Gren
dont give it away yet - you havent seen the BIG BIG transformers it has!
you can scorch the dust balls off a 20 foot ceiling with just the shock wave from the new arcs you van make
the people 2 house's down will be having bad hair days every time you fire it up
your cat will think it unsafe to even think about walking on the carpet
and the dog will only drink water from his metal dish one last time

have fun with it and be careful

your instructable generated a lot of conversation on a private hackerspace email list i am on. people were really impressed.

you should feel good about your accomplishment.

- my laser show of course should have won ;)

I suppose, still really bummed though. When will there be another contest?

Well if you're really that upset about winning I would love a welder and would have a great time using it. I'll even trade a leatherman for it ; )

It's tomorrow morning over here... :D
9 hours time difference is an ETERNITY!

Yes indeed, so a big chance that you win something. And your chance of winning is actually 14/20 as I have 2 projects in the list and the rules say that I only can win 1 prize.

Good Job! It is a great project!

Jan

So is yours :)

So ARE yours, I should say... Two finalists, wow!

If you click on contests at the top right of the screen and scroll down to the Epilog Challenge it says the judging ends at midnight April 5th. I would assume that means they will announce the 6th but I'm not sure.

In the mean time, you can live in the box that came with the laser cutter :)

I would think you would still have to pay federal taxes, remember the fiasco when Opra W. gave away cars and they couldn't keep them because of the taxes they had to pay. If I were to guess it would be between 30-50% of the prize money. Anything over $500 you have to pay taxes on.

Where I live, you have to pay taxes on money lotteries but not on other prizes.

I guess it depends on where you live. You don't have to pay any taxes where I live.

The mig welder is a campbell

How is it?

I think you're too late, the deadline was the 21st I think. You're entered into the makerbot challenge though!

Ou, well ok, at least its good to know why I couldn't enter =)

When does the voting phase end?

Thank you!

I think the instructables clock is two minutes ahead of yours because you are saying that it is 11:09 but the time on your comment says 11:11

Yeah this is really fustrating. all I can hope is that I am added somehow. I worked like hell on this. it is not in the listing to add to contest.

Well it is too late now , and I am missing voting . Lets hope someone in the mods reads this and realizes the error.

Guess that's that then. I will try another contest and hope for the best.

What time zone are you in?

According to this it should be ok, "you can edit as much as you want whenever you want".

i was wondering about the same thing. Anyone?

That is fine, they encourage it if anything!

hola

I want to participate in epilog laser ... i sent my video bus i cant see the icon "epilog contect"

Can you help me Place??

Thank you. I missed this: "Contest closes for entries at 11:59pm PDT, Mar. 20." which makes it crystal clear. I just had to be absolutely sure!

Addendum: The reason I started questioning my understanding of this is that the emailed Author Update lists the Epilog contest deadline as March 27. I can only assume that is a typo.

Anyone?

I got it too!! I was about to heave a sigh of relif but no such luck!