MintyIce wrote:
In current curricula around me (NJ), there isn't a real need for calculator training. Maybe we could go down an educational route--create a how-to that's super user friendly and accessible. Get clicks from both educators and students alike.


To a small degree, Cemetech does try to cater to educators (as we do go to Texas Instruments T3 conference) and it's been a long term goal of mine to increase our appeal to educators on our website. I've just never been fond of cold-calling/mailing probable teachers. Would you be open to discussing over email what you'd like to see?
Alex wrote:
MintyIce wrote:
In current curricula around me (NJ), there isn't a real need for calculator training. Maybe we could go down an educational route--create a how-to that's super user friendly and accessible. Get clicks from both educators and students alike.


To a small degree, Cemetech does try to cater to educators (as we do go to Texas Instruments T3 conference) and it's been a long term goal of mine to increase our appeal to educators on our website. I've just never been fond of cold-calling/mailing probable teachers. Would you be open to discussing over email what you'd like to see?
In particular, starting at this year's T^3 conference, we've been trying to raise the visibility of Cemetech's Resources for Teachers ( https://www.cemetech.net/resources/#teachers ). We'd love to learn more about improving both the resources and their visibility!
I forgot to mention this in my previous post, but I also think it would be a good idea to run more contests. Contests tend to bring in quite a bit of activity for the site, both in terms of posts and programs. I also think that it would be a good idea to occasionally run contests that are less calculator-focused. That would give individual Cemetech members an excuse to branch out a bit, as well as attract a more general audience. We could publicize contests that are specifically game-related on sites like [url]itch.io[/url], which could help bring more traffic from non-calculator programmers. I also think it might be a cool idea to do a contest that is specifically hardware-related, if enough people are interested.

One other thing that I forgot to mention: perhaps we could add a prominent link to the Discord, either on the homepage or above the RSS & Social Media box on the sidebar? I imagine that a decent percentage of the unregistered guests that view topics and download programs don't want to make an account for Cemetech, but already have a Discord account that they could use to join. Right now the Discord link is only available on some obscure news topic (and in the About section of my CC22 entry, though that's irrelevant), so it's unlikely that people even know it exists.
commandblockguy wrote:
I forgot to mention this in my previous post, but I also think it would be a good idea to run more contests. Contests tend to bring in quite a bit of activity for the site, both in terms of posts and programs. I also think that it would be a good idea to occasionally run contests that are less calculator-focused. That would give individual Cemetech members an excuse to branch out a bit, as well as attract a more general audience. We could publicize contests that are specifically game-related on sites like https://itch.io, which could help bring more traffic from non-calculator programmers. I also think it might be a cool idea to do a contest that is specifically hardware-related, if enough people are interested.


This is a fantastic idea. Currently contests seem to be happening every 6-12 months, and I think it would be better to stay towards the lower end of that (Any more frequent and I feel that people wouldn't be as incentivized to participated due to the "oh there will just be another one in a couple short months" excuse)

Contests aiming at collaboration are a great way to get more people involved. It maintains the healthy spirit while building better communication skills (which is an incredibly important skill that I myself need to get better at).

Additionally, it seems that the general feeling towards contest decision making is aligned more with having a panel of a few judges vs. voting in the community. This makes sense due to frustration caused by users voting for programs seemingly only on screenshots.

Edit: Since this forum extends past programming, even, it might be cool to have a few music and photography contests to broaden our horizons further. We have a multitude of increasingly skilled musicians active on the discord server in particular, but I don't feel this is accurately represented on the forums.
What if we did a contest every month or every other month (EDIT: that's probably too frequent - maybe every third month?), but alternated between what type of contest it was? Like, say we did a calculator game contest one month, a music or photography contest the next, a code golf type contest after that, then a hardware/engineering-based contest, repeating in a cycle. That way people wouldn't be inclined to skip contests due to how frequently that kind of contest occurs, but there would still be at least some kind of contest going on most of the time.

I also think that daily user-contributed puzzles would be neat - I might actually start that myself when I get some more free time.
commandblockguy wrote:
What if we did a contest every month or every other month, but alternated between what type of contest it was? Like, say we did a calculator game contest one month, a music or photography contest the next, a code golf type contest after that, then a hardware/engineering-based contest, repeating in a cycle. That way people wouldn't be inclined to skip contests due to how frequently that kind of contest occurs, but there would still be at least some kind of contest going on most of the time.

I also think that daily user-contributed puzzles would be neat - I might actually start that myself when I get some more free time.


I feel like that almost degrades the reward of winning a contest. Trophy inflation is a thing, and it's probably something we want to avoid. We aren't little league, after all Evil or Very Mad (Disclaimer- I'm not just saying this because I won CC21. This is a concern I would have even if I didn't have a userbar)

Edit: I base my lower bound of 6 months off the following cycle:

Quote:
<iPhoenix> It's probably better to have one a few months into school, and one a few months before school ends
<iPhoenix> this is about 6 months


Edit: there seems to be a consensus on having a mix of longer (1 month, ish) contests and shorter (1 week, ish) contests.
Regarding the mix of contest lengths:
Perhaps we could make a distinction between "short" and "long" contests (no idea how to name those, 0x5), where "long" contests last a month, and "short" contests last a week.
We could have 2 long contests per year, and 4-6 short contests per year.
Long contests would have trophies and userbars, and short contests would have just trophies (or maybe a separate system, with medals instead of trophies).
Having short contests could keep interest up, especially during the summer. They are also less daunting that month-long contests, so we might get more entries and have fewer participants drop out.

PT also wanted me to add this, as he is on mobile - these were hand picked by me but I feel they provide a decent review of the discussion in SAX:
IRC wrote:

[PT_] I think there should be 3 contests, repeating all the time. One small one about calculators, one small one about other tech and a big one about alternating calculators and otherz
[PT_] Say, every month 1 contest, which means every 3 months a bigger one
[kg583] calc, tech, CALC, tech, calc, TECH, calc, tech, ...
[PT_] Yeah, like that
[PT_] But 2/3 are small ones
[PT_] Yeah, tech can be things like music, 3D printing etc too, to have difference
[PT_] So, every 2 months a contest. Calc and tech/others are alternating, and every third contest is a bigger one. Big contests should have user bars (and prices) and trophies are for the winners of smaller ones.
[iPhoenix] I'm thinking a big one with prizes in September, one in about April. Small ones sporadically in between, with a bunch in summer. Alternating calc and other, like PT_ said
[PT_] I choose October as the bigger one, since most of the time school starts in September
[PT_] And then March for the second one
[iPhoenix] A big one with prizes in October, one in about March. Small ones sporadically in between, with a bunch in summer. Alternating calc and other, like PT_ said


Edit by PT_: here's a Pastebin with our full conversation: https://pastebin.com/raw/UywvxGe8
I think that is a nice idea! I'm also happy to donate some $$ for prizes etc if required.
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