Project Requirements

Before starting your project

Make a GitHub Repo! Make sure to have frequent commits of your work so that we can verify it's your own.

Time tracking

You will also need to track the amount of time you've spent for your project. This will not be used to determine whether you get approved or not - approvals are quality based. This will be used to (1) see where people are struggling / doing well on their projects so we can make better programs, and (2) check for fraud (ie: if someone were to copy another person's project).

Time tracking options:

  • Journaling
    • Make a JOURNAL.md file in the root of your GitHub repo, and update it with an session entry every time you work on your project - you need to commit your changes so that the commit is on the same date as your entry!
    • Per session entry, you need:
      • date
      • amount of hours/time spent
      • what you did + learnt
      • at least 1 screenshot!
    • Add up the total amount of hours you worked on it and put it on the top before submitting for review
    • check out the Codex for additional reference.
  • more options coming soon maybe :"D

How do I know if my journal is good enough?

Journals are 50% of what reviewers will be looking at to approve a project.

We are looking for a couple of things when reviewing:

  • Does it include the technical things you learned? Link datasheets you used, include exact part numbers, show the decision making behind your project!
  • Am I able to recreate the project when looking at the journal? The journal should be a trail of information, not a timesheet!
  • Specificity is good! "I worked on the schematic" is bad, but "I added decouling capacitors - I learned the mcu needs x amount of 100nF capacitors, for each of it's 3v3 lines, in order to filter out noise" is much better!

PROJECT APPROVAL IS QUALITY BASED. HOURS ARE NOT TAKEN INTO ACCOUNT. DO NOT INFLATE YOUR HOURS!!

We are less likely to approve a project if it seems like the hours are inflated, it just gives us more work to verify what is real and not.

Quality

Because the projects submitted to Gadget Market will be traded with others, the quality bar for projects of this program will be higher than usual. If you're just starting out, I'd recommend trying to get your project funded through Stardance instead.

That means:

  • Projects must be polished! Round your corners, add silkscreen art, remove empty space from the PCB, etc!
  • Projects must be unique in some way! Don't just ship another macropad.
  • Projects must serve a purpose. It could be whimsical (ie: something that makes capacitors explode), or simple (ie: capacitive touch PCB keychain with backlit LEDs) but don't just make LEDs light up on a giant PCB!

This is not an extensive list! It is up to the reviewer if they want to approve the project.

If your design gets rejected on first pass, you are always free to make it better and resubmit. Please wait at least 3 days before resubmitting.

On CAD

Even though Gadget Market is primarily PCBs, if you're designing something that typically has a case (ie: an alarm clock), you are still expected to make and submit the case with it! You are also expected to get the case 3D printed for your demo, so that it is fully assembled.

However, you are not required to ship the case out to others when you list it on the Market.