How to enter the Etsy and Instructables Sew Useful Contest

Step 2 How we judged this contest

We judged the Sew Useful Contest using Range Voting, with help from the staff at Etsy, MAKE and CRAFT magazines, and Instructables.

Each judge received a ballot with the following instructions:
Please cast votes, in each of the three criteria, for any of the contest entries.

The three criteria are:
Helpful -- goes to the most useful thing that helps others in need
Hybrid -- goes to the best combination of sewing and technology
Educational -- goes to the best Instructable tutorial

A vote of "9" indicates that the project should win. A vote of "0" indicates that the project should not win. A vote of "no opinion/project not suitable" does not affect a project's standing in that criteria.

For example, if a project should win the Helpful award, vote a "9" for the project in its Helpful dropdown box. If a project is suitable for the Helpful award, but should not win, vote a "0". If you have no opinion, or if the project is not suitable for an award, vote "no opinion/project not suitable."

The actual ballot contained the 126 entries in random order with a drop-down box that defaulted to "no opinion" but could be set to 0-9.

All 28 judges were required to submit their username and email address to authenticate their vote.

As in the Olympics, the average score is the final determinant for each project.
All projects with more than 50% of the potential maximum score are listed below, sorted by average score. Reading across: project name, sum of votes, average score, number of votes, standard deviation, and percentage of maximum score.

Educational
Rain or Shine Solar Charger - 108 - 8.3 - 13 - 0.94 - 61%
Envelope Book - 92 - 7.6 - 12 - 1.15 - 52%
Concrete Lightbulb Wall Hook - 117 - 7.3 - 16 - 1.25 - 66%
SewUseful Plushie Personal Boom-box / Goodnight Pillow - 123 - 6.8 - 18 - 1.47 - 70%
Insulin Pump Garter - 99 - 6.6 - 15 - 2.00 - 56%
Screen Printing Machine: Print Faux-co! - 114 - 6 - 19 - 2.40 - 64%
Introducing the Fab-brick (a Sew Useful contest project) - 93 - 5.5 - 17 - 2.60 - 53%

Hybrid
Rain or Shine Solar Charger 124 - 8.3 - 15 - 0.88 - 70%
Fire Skirt! - 176 - 7.7 - 23 - 1.47 - 100%
SewUseful Plushie Personal Boom-box / Goodnight Pillow - 164 - 7.1 - 23 - 1.87 - 93%
Insulin Pump Garter - 100 - 6.7 - 15 - 0.98 - 57%

Helpful
Rain or Shine Solar Charger - 99 - 7.6 - 13 - 1.61 - 56%
Insulin Pump Garter - 164 - 7.5 - 22 - 1.57 - 93%
Airtight waterproof hearing aid dryer - 116 - 6.8 - 17 - 1.63 - 66%
SewUseful Walker Bag With a Professional Touch - 97 - 6.5 - 15 - 2.00 - 55%
Double Leg Bag - 89 - 6.4 - 14 - 2.31 - 51%
Concrete Lightbulb Wall Hook - 99 - 6.2 - 16 - 2.23 - 56%
Emergency Recordable Bag - 90 - 6 - 15 - 1.65 - 51%
SewUseful Plushie Personal Boom-box / Goodnight Pillow - 101 - 5.9 - 17 - 1.71 - 57%
Screen Printing Machine: Print Faux-co! - 108 - 5.4 - 20 - 2.39 - 61%

Notes
Since the solar charger won all three categories, it was awarded the prize for its highest-scoring category, Educational. The insulin pump garter would then have won the Helpful category, but due to close family ties it was removed from contention. (The author will instead receive a Robot t-shirt and a big hug.)

Congratulations again to all who entered- there were so many truly fantastic projects!