Hello rog8811,

Congratulations on being a winner!
Let me know if you ever need anything.
A big thank you to instructables for hosting this contest!
Best,
Joe N.

Awesome, thanks everyone and WICKED LASERS!

Hello iminthebathroom,

Congratulations on being a winner! Enjoy your laser.
Give me a shout if you ever need anything.

Best,

Joe N.

Word. Kudos to fungus amungus for running the whole show!

Haha, I hope that you won't have to update that comment too many times...
How about we give it two more days then just agree that everyone's a winner?

yup, think I'll keep up the date change on a daily basis just for kicks

lol

Hello EngineeringShock,
Sorry to see that customs took your laser. Please email me at joe@wickedlasers.com and I will get your laser to you. Please place your user name in the subject line.
Best,
Joe N.

My country's customs took everything. I received nothing from wicked lasers :|

The only thing I received was the Instructables prize pack, which included a 4-6 years t-shirt instead of an adult S...

Is this bad luck normal?

Hello XicoMBD,
Sorry to see that customs took your laser. Please email me at joe@wickedlasers.com and I will help you with receiving your laser. Please place your user name in the subject line of your email to me.
Best,
Joe N.

I talked with the Canadian bureau of radiation, and they said that there have been a ton of lasers entering the country from Wicked Lasers, and they've all been detained. Anyone else have this problem?

And it only is 5mw!

You ask, what is steampunk. Well, let's talk about plastic.

Plastic is wonderful stuff. It has enabled us to reach new heights in technology and civilization. It also makes stuff that is really affordable (cheap) and in great volume (everybody has one). It has also replaced nearly everything that was made of metal, wood, glass, canvas, leather, ceramic, etcetera, etcetera. But while plastic is a superior substitute for some applications, it's actually inferior for most others, and being that it's cheap and mass produced, it also lacks a feeling of craftsmanship. Would you hoist a fine micro-brew in a plastic cup? Eat a fancy meal with a plastic spork? Wear a plastic engagement ring? You see, plastic lacks romance and uniqueness, it has no essence of individuality or robustness, there is no aura of nostalgia associated with it, all of which I think is what steampunk is all about.

Yes, I strongly hate plastic. Plastic packaging is nearly always unnecessary. Reusable water bottles are much better than disposable plastic. Glass is better than plastic – you can reuse and recycle it an infinite number of times rather than only a few times at most. Plastic products are often garbage -- they break easily. Plastic hurts the environment in many ways: making trash, use of oil products, poisoning our water with chemicals, etc. It also promotes our screwed up culture of materialistic consumerism. But I think that you can make things out of metal, wood, glass, canvas, leather, ceramic, etc, minus the old-fashioned look. That might make the use of such "old fashioned materials" much more appealing to most people. When you use durable, "old fashioned materials" materials, reuse also could become much more appealing as well.

I wouldn't completely dis on plastic, as I stated above, it has made many wonderful things possible, for example; major advances in medicine and major improvements in quality of life. Like it or not, we are all materialistic consumers, otherwise why would we bother to make things to begin with? Do you like having stuff? I like to have stuff, I especially like to have better stuff, and I especially like to have stuff that no one else has because I'm very individualistic. While it may seem romantic to be thrown back into the stone age, how pleasant can it be to lie in the dirt in subzero temperatures dying from a simple bacterial infection? And how much fun would it be if all you could have is the exact same thing that everyone else had? While it's true that there is waste and toxins associated with plastics, the same can be said of nearly any other material. So, you may want to rethink your take on plastics, and please do recycle when appropriate.

I'm not saying that plastic is 100% evil. My point is that only perhaps 10% of plastic made has a legitimate and beneficial end use.

I would say that in packaging plastic is really bad, and it is one of the more evil ways plastic is used. Only problem is that we as a society are so spoiled that the plastic containers are more or less necessary to keep up the life style of our civilization even if there are alternatives. In order to get what we want when we want it at a low low price and fresh (food stuff at least) you cant beat plastic containers.

Hi, the steampunk thing...
Well in my case I wanted to make something that at least in the dark would give the effect of the light sabre we all know and love.
Trouble is when viewed in daylight it looks nothing like a light sabre, to describe it as such would probably prompted derision.

Steampunk tends to be stuff that is cobbled together from odds and ends, tend to be ornate or unusual in design, that describes what I have built quite well I thought.

Does that help at all?

Regards rog8811

I like it. Enough said.

And being a bit materialistic..I'd really like to have one (or two, as the case may be.)

Not that safe but it would be cool to see your laser show project with a little more power. Ok, a lot more power. :)

the notion of a laser-based "tattooing" system has come to mind... ;)

More like tattooed burns and melanoma.

Hooray!
Congratulations to all, especially the well-deserved Top Two!

For sure!

Who knows... probably pretty soon. But the suspense is killing me!

I agree, I have had to judge contests as well, and it is never an easy thing to do since someone always gets sore . and depending on the contest someone always try to cheat.

In my case I simply look forward to comments on my work and how I can improve my submissions ,

(clapping in agreement)

Couldn't agree more. It also seems that all of the complaints were people that have been caught cheating :D

hilarious really, whaaaaaaaaaaaaaa they all go. Some of them really should run for office though. They cheat, are blatant about it, all though they think they are being sneaky. (Really I can track anyone regardless if they change there IP address or not, its amazing what simple algorithm programs can do by the way.) And then they complain because there method of cheating should have guaranteed a win.... wow. I have to admit, I wouldn't have handled it as eloquently as fungus amungus did. And trust, I'm sure it wasn't just fungus amungus noting this...

(removed by author or community request)

*stands up and applauds*

*joins in*

*double joins in*

snap!

At one stage I had a 5 start rating for my Super Cyborg Rubber ducky and all of a sudden I had a rating lower than the laser guided slingshot that belongs to kipkay!
I wonder what happened there and I think that something weird is going on. I worked for hours on my instructable. Many other people had better Ible's than most of the finalists but some finalists deserve the place e.g Pocket laser engraver and the Arduino Laser Show but some don't (no offence) LASER ART V2

I feel that this is unfair to the good ible's that deserve a prize.

i totally agree. Some of these aren't even good or useful at all. They probably just got a bunch of friends to vote for them, or perhaps they just created a lot of accounts and voted for themselves. I don't think mine is worse then a lot of these finalists. I wonder what's going on... maybe some of these people are friends with the judges. Hmm..I just wonder if these judges are even JUDGING.

same

I'm disappointed...
the same thing happend to me. first a 5 star rating and then suddenly 3.2 or so...
just by looking at the comments and finalists, I can tell you that the average age of instructables users is BELOW 14! and then the FINALISTS are steampunk laser guns and robotic kitty with frickin' laz0rs attached to it's frickin' eyes, or Dart Board Laser Lines (which consist just from a line-generating laser module)!
I think all the finalists should be decided by the instructables crew, because now, almost enntire half of FINALISTS are just (mostly) worthless/useless/too simple pieces of crap! [no offense to the GOOD user-voted entries]
when someone is a FINALIST, that should mean that he has made something VERY unique/useful/helpful, it just has to be worth of being a finalist!

IMHO my complete "How to build a laser" guide is better than some laser eyed robotic cat... If someone (like me) spends 3.5 hours making his instructable (trying to make it best looking and easy to understand), it's really demotivating to see that he has been defeated by some dart board laser line or by someone who has bought 95% of his votes
just my 0.02, this was probably first and last time I entered in a contest here :(

I'm sorry you dislike my Laser Cats so much. I set out to make a project that I thought no one else would likely do for the contest. I fully expected there to be laser guns, laser shows, laser writing, laser instruments, laser security systems. I thought Laser Cats would unlikely be duplicated. What is great is all of these were done in ways very different to how I might have approached them, so I cetainly won't care when they beat my entry.

If you've paid any attention at all to what kind of projects make the main page you will have noticed a large number of silly, wierd, or limited use items get featured. A thing that also separates them is although they might be silly they were done with skill and documented well. This is because many members and staff here like fun whismical projects, and even if the end product is not for you, the processes used to make them can be applied to other projects.

I think the only place you went wrong (for winning) in your instructable (Which I thought was good) is your choice of project box for your laser housing. Just think if you would have housed your laser in a cat, gun/drill or a fake Charlie Sheen head...

I think the only place you went wrong (for winning) in your instructable (Which I thought was good) is your choice of project box for your laser housing. Just think if you would have housed your laser in a cat, gun/drill or a fake Charlie Sheen head...
this could be the problem... because there are lots of kids who don't care if your instructable is helpful or contains extremely awesome technical stuff, they just want to see something steampunk/cool looking (like frickin' sharks with frickin' beams etc...).
I don't say that your cat is bad (the idea is actually pretty cool), I just think there were other (better) instructables that COULD be finalists :(

Try not to be to jaded by a few bad experiences here. In contests there always be competition, some good some bad. Stand by your entry and be proud of what you have done. The judges don't use stats, they look at the body of work. I have entered in other contests thinking I was gonna win for sure, not so... yet others I thought nah, I won't win ended up winning. It can be hard to perceive what is worthy of winning and whats not some time.

Yeah I personally thought that mine deserved to a higher place than the dart board line. http://www.instructables.com/id/Laser-Synth/
Oh well, there are better things than super awesome 1 watt lasers...
I enjoyed the contest experience though :)

As for "simple" projects, there can be ideas that aren't technically amazing, but are just a nice implementation. I feel that the dart board one falls into that category. He didn't build his own laser, but he put it to a good use and explained it clearly. There's something to be said for that.

ok, the idea can be good and the product is kinda useful, but try to ask yourself this question: "Should this win the main prize?" I presonally don't think so...

Are yoy kidding me? Look at my instructable. OMG! Bit more work in my design, sorry I didn't mention the safety notice about lasers! R u Kidding me?

I had 74 votes...

Thank you for tracking those shenanigans.
<3

yes it was i checked right before 12. i was way head because me and a couple of friends who also entered got all our friends to vote for us so we knew we were ahead and we continuously checked other people votes because we really wanted to win this contest. we all know we were ahead.

I'm guessing if you were in the running to win the contest the judges would have picked you as one of their ten votes anyway.

yeah but ive entered a contest so many times and never won. i wanted to make sure i get into the finalists to have a better chance so i got everyone i knew and told a bunch of people on facebook to vote for me and i had like 80 votes and i didnt get in. its deffinatly riged because my friends that i entered with didnt get in either

Maybe you should have spent as much time on your project as you did on advertising it. I think the point of voting isn't to see who has the most friends they can beg to vote for them, but to have other people who don't know you recognize you for the quality of your project.

no my project was awesome

oh, there you go, finalist have been posted

Usually a couple days, then about a week for judging seems to be the standard.

A couple of days just to count votes and choose ten other entries?

I have been a judge in the past, not on this one though. The finalist section usually takes a day or two, remember most of all this judging is done by members like you and I, not by paid staff. People have jobs, families, & responsibilities etc... Usually the finalists are posted quite quickly though. Its the judging that takes longer. I was given 5 days to review, and then 2 days for them to process and assume have the sponsors review them as well. The contests are done a little different these days with the public picking ten and staff/sponsors picking ten. The staff/sponsors may have a few favorites that then get picked by the public. Which makes them have to go back and pick new ones to meet the 10 required by them. Really you want the judges to have time to go through them carefully and thoughtfully rather then just pick ones based on the cover shot. Hope this helps, I am just as eager to find out as well !!! Best to just not look for a couple days, use this time to plan future instructables, a bunch of new super cool contest just popped up! Or try building one of the instructables on this site, tons of amazing stuff in the archives that get missed.

Well said matey

Instructables staff knows this and gave a solution to save the good and serious job.

http://www.instructables.com/contest/laser/?show=ENTER

"Finalists - Half of the finalists are determined by the user votes, and the other half are determined by Instructables staff. It's our own checks and balances system."

I didn't know that counted as spam. I'll delete my I WILL VOTE FOR YOU message

I hope I did the right thing by deleting the comment

voted but didnt enter
ha ha ha h a

I voted! vote me vote me

what does that even have to do with anything

I agree. Doesn't this make the contest a little redundant?