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Give me a challenge

I mentioned a month or two ago that I'd really have liked to create something like the Australian Outback Joe Challenge, to get kids, sheddies and other smart Kiwis thinking and proving their innovative abilities.

Of course, thanks to CAA "policy", the prospect of doing an Outback Joe UAV challenge is pretty much zero -- but what other kind of challenge could I organise to excite the minds of "thinkers"?

I had thought of an "Earth Rover" challenge -- where entrants had to come up with a land-based rover which needed to perform several tasks -- all commanded by remote control while the vehicle was placed in a special area that roughly emulated the Martian surface.

I'm still pretty keen on that - but there is a problem... the price of such a thing.

Ideally, any challenge should not involve the need to spend a lot of money. We really want entry available to anyone with good ideas, not just those with fat wallets.

For that reason, I'd like to come up with something where the maximum spend would be no more than (say) $500 and all entrants would be required to provide receipts for the bits they'd used to prove their results are more due to clever thinking than excessive use of the plastic.

Unfortunately, creating any kind of "rover" with more than trivial capabilities would likely be an expensive proposition. Motors, wheels, drive-mechanisms, metalwork, servos, sensors etc -- all cost money.

So, is there some other kind of science/technology-based challenge that could be created to get Kiwis of all ages excited about turning their ideas into reality?

I'm pretty sure I could rake up $1K or so as a prize -- and perhaps some nice sponsorship to help with promotion and administration overheads so I'm keen as beans to actually do what government ought to be doing to help get us ready for the 21st century.

Obviously there are many factors involved in determining what's a good challenge and what's not.

Firstly, it has to be safe. Building the best bomb for under $500 is not really going to be sensible (although it would make a great reality TV show :-)

Secondly, it ought to analog a real-world problem so that the results could perhaps be applied to creating or improving a commercial product.

Thirdly, it should be a challenge that will likely encourage a diverse number of solutions, hopefully each one taking a significantly different approach.

A good challenge ought to also be sufficiently broad that it attracts entrants with skills or knowledge across a wide range of disciplines. Something that involves a bit of mechanics, a bit of electronics, some chemistry and some physics would be far better than something that is far narrower in its demands.

And finally, it should be fun!

Never underestimate the importance of *fun* -- even if its only purpose is to irritate the grumpy old buggers who should be promoting innovation rather than stifling it.

So now I open up the floor to Aardvark readers who, I'm sure, will come up with a plethora of really good ideas for such a challenge.

You guys come up with a decent idea and I'll see if I can turn it into NZ's *first* real technology challenge. Hopefully, if it's successful, the government will finally wake up to the value that such challenges represent and pick up the ball.

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