What type of contest do you want?

in STEMGeekslast year

Our latest Marshmallow challenge contest received zero entries after a week.

I want to build incentives for creating quality STEM content, but not sure what you guys would be interested in. I ran a few favorite gadget contests that got a few entries but I wanted to change things up with a fun Science Contest but got no response.

Is there a type of STEM contest you would be interested in?

I want to create contests that are fun to participate in, got any ideas?
If you do, let me know in the comments.


I can tell you why I didnt enter personally: I don't live by any grocery stores. I go shopping like once a month lol. So maybe people are too lazy/ busy / don't feel like going to the store to buy marshmellows? Thats just a guess.

Another obvious problem is the lack of serious STEM users. THere's not really a whole lot of people posting Science, Tech, Math and/or Engineering posts on the STEM front end. This is probably the biggest problem.

STEM has great distribution numbers and curation. but if there's barely any users being rewarded for quality posts: Good luck launching competitions like this. Somehow "we" need to find more GEEKS.

Obiously buying marshmellows and pasta isnt difficult for most people. However, it is something people need to remember to do vs. just entering that day. Maybe do some type of math contest next? Have a couple equations to balance? See if people remember PEMDAS?

Anyways ill try REALLY hard to enter the next competition and also get some of my friends to enter.

Perhaps a longer time period for the contest, then you run into the problem of people loosing the post. the countdown times add a little bit of viability to a post so that might be of use to alert people here is a contest. For myself, I like looking at the results, but even if I did want to enter the marshmallow challenge I would have had to go to the store and hope they had a bag of marshmallows and some spaghetti. (not products I typically keep, and I usually only shop once or twice a week).

Maybe point the post toward people with kids of school age, I know there are a lot of people with kids. I am rather surprised that people with kids did not get their kids involved with the marshmallow contest, it seemed like it would be a great thing for families, perhaps they just did not have the stuff handy.

Also reach out to some of the communities that might have a larger child population, like Powerhouse Creative or the creativecoin, or the Home education communities. the homesteaders community may also be of help when trying to find participants. Some of them are small communities, but they do have some pretty dedicated users and are always trying to find fun ways to educate their children.

 last year 

I'd like to see some experiments, preferably setting fire to stuff or blowing something up.

 last year 

Would you participate? That's the problem, there is almost no engagement on any of the contests even when giving away free tokens.

 last year 

Probably not. If I had a back yard there would be more chance.

I second this. A lot of my STEM posts are just simple experiments for kids. Then I do a deep dive on who invented the mechanism im exploring and such. You could do somrthing like "who can make the strongest invisible ink." Then reward everyone who enters on a sliding scale: Rewarding the winner the most.

Something like this would be SUPER easy to enter. People could just use lemon juice. But there are more complex invisible inks that are more difficult to make and MUCH stronger. So someone could really go crazy and win first place.

not that taping pasta and marshmellows together is difficult, but i think people are just too lazy to go to the store honestly. They want to enter that day or they forget.

Also you should try the 3 other letters in STEM before you give up. I sort of suck at Engineering lol. That's just me.

Dear Bog, if I'd seen the Marshmallow Challenge when it was a thing, I'd be all over it. In fact, Ima do it regardless. My son is visiting this weekend, and he's got some sort of degree in engineering from some sort of college he went to that I'm still paying for, so he's got to earn his dinner.

 last year 

Please do, feel free to drop a link on the post if you make a post about it.

Good luck, it is a great team building exercise in businesses, it is even better as a family activity.

I always dream of participating in something that is innovative! For example, wear ecology clothing, something that helps the planet! Create things with recyclable material!👀

 last year 

Lack of promotion and incentives for joining the contest.

Bashadow gave me a heads up on this. We might be able to help out getting attention towards experiments, particularly if aimed at primary aged children. I do see quite a few experiments being show cased in the homeschooling tag and I suspect some of the parents wouldn't mind getting some more ideas.

If I'm entirety honest, there are two types of people who respond to community challenges. Those who are passionate about the community and those who are drawn by the hope of good rewards and support (and I'm sorry to say that it's hive rewards above the tokens).

It looks like you're competing for attention with stemsocial as well.