Guidelines for Amazing Maker Awards

To recognize the creative, technical, and social contributions of makers and the impact of their projects all over the world.

The Basics

Let’s start with some basic guidelines for participating in the Amazing Maker Awards.

You must be 13 years of age or older to enter your project in the Awards. If you are under 13, you may have an adult register on your behalf and submit your project.

You represent that project that you submit reflects work that you have done yourself or as a part of a team. In other words, your project should be based on your own interests and ideas and demonstrate your own skills and abilities.
You can enter your own project yourself or a team or group can enter a project. We support both Do-It-Yourself (DIY) and Do-It-Together (DIT) projects.
Your project should have been started by January 2020, which is roughly a two-year window. We are looking for recent projects. You can only enter ONE project as a maker or member of a team. So pick your best project.
Your project belongs to you but we encourage you to share it. By default, any content, including images, sounds, and sample code, that you post, upload, provide, submit, share, publish, distribute or make available here should be considered licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license unless you declare otherwise. For example, you could declare a copyright on any part or all of your work but you need to say so explicitly.
You should produce project documentation that describes what your project is about and how you built it. Your project documentation should explicitly credit others who helped you in this project as well as those whose work you found helpful.
You need to describe in brief the how, what and why of your project. We call this a “project pitch”, which is a video presentation of no more than two-minutes. The maker or makers do not necessarily need to appear in the presentation and a PowerPoint deck can be used to describe the project. Nonetheless, your presentation is a story about what you made and why it’s important.
Makers have an obligation to work safely and protect ourselves as well as others and the tools we use. Please understand and follow safety guidelines when you work on your project.

What Kind of Projects

If you’ve been to a Maker Faire, you know already that there are a lot of amazing projects. There are so many that it’s hard to pick a favorite. We use the word “Amazing” because we think broadly about what projects we like best and that includes projects which may be considered “art” and those which may be considered “science”. (Ideally, projects combine both art and science.) They might make us laugh or think or wonder.

A project is a prototype made up of physical and digital components that are easily available. A prototype should be able to convey what your project is about, what it does and what it can be. In other words, a prototype is a promise of what’s to come – by no means is it a finished product.

Here are a few prompts:

Is it a project that is useful to others?
Does it impact the lives of other people in a positive way?
Can it be enjoyed by other people because of what it does or how it makes them feel?
Does it interact with other people, getting them involved, doing something or making something that they may not normally do?
Is your project especially appropriate for a certain age group or members of a particular group?
Does your project provide a DIY solution that can be replicated by others?
Does your project have potential as a commercial product? Might others want to buy it someday?

Show and Tell

Making a project is only one part of what you must do. Showing your project and telling others is also an important part. For us, it’s the main part. It’s what we do. That’s why Maker Faire was called “The Greatest Show and Tell on Earth.” For the makers, what they got out of Maker Faire was a chance to tell their own story, connect with other people who cared to listen to their story and ask good questions.

So, you might think that half of your work is making something and the other half is putting together a two-minute video that explains what your project is about. We call this a project pitch, which is a show and tell. Here are four elements to consider for your presentation:

Talk about what you made and how you made it.
Talk about why you made it and why others might care
Tell us why it was important to you to do this project.
What will it take to get your project to the next level?

Through your participation and sharing your “Show and Tell”, you will get meaningful feedback from others including other entrants, but also reviewers and judges. They might help you identify key elements for your project to be more successful.

Submission Date

The deadline for submitting your project pitch is Wednesday, June 1 at noon PDT.

Judging

A jury or panel of judges will select the projects for the showcase. At least twelve projects will be selected.

Judges will use the following criteria:

Ingenuity (20%)
Originality (25%)
Quality of Work (20%)
Potential Impact (20%)
Effectiveness of Presentation (15%)

Projects will be recognized according to the following categories:

Innovation
Social Innovation
Artistic Expression
Education

What Do You Get?

We call these awards “The Makeys” after our red robot mascot.

The dozen projects selected for the showcase will receive:

A personalized “Makey” award plaque
Top listing in the Amazing Maker Awards online showcase
A feature in Make: Magazine in 2022.

Showcase winners will be invited to present their project online as part of the Amazing Maker Awards program.

Each maker who submits a completed entry will get a signed Certificate of Entry.

Community Guidelines

You are encouraged to participate in the Discord server for the Amazing Maker Awards. You can meet other participants, ask questions and get help from the maker community.

You agree to abide by our Community Guidelines when interacting on our Discord community or in other services we provide.

Our goal is to foster a supportive and productive community. Makers of all kinds (even those who don’t consider themselves makers) are welcome and encouraged to participate — regardless of age, gender, race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation or skill level. Our community is grounded in our shared values: openness, resourcefulness, ingenuity, generosity, creativity, resilience and self-directedness, to mention a few. Kindness goes a long way.

If asked to provide feedback on projects, or answer questions, please do so by being constructive with your comments and show respect for others and their work.
Do not spam the community with any promotional or commercial material.
Do not share any offensive material that is NOT SAFE FOR WORK.
Do not violate anyone’s privacy.

If you violate community guidelines, you will be given one warning, and after that, you will be excluded from the community.

Please also consult our Terms of Use for Make Community.