Atmel Arrow Smart Design Challenge

I submitted a design proposal to Atmel's AVR design contest back in October. The grand prize is a Smart Car. I figured winning a new car would be fun.

On Friday, they notified me that I had made it into the semi-finals, along with up to 100 other entries.

I now have 30 days to produce a "design on paper". Schematics, BOM, software, and "simulations". I got bit carried away in my proposal, so I'm now worried I won't complete this phase of the design in time. I'm pretty busy with some contract work plus trying to start a new business. And lets not forget the holidays.

Maybe I should have started work on the paper design back in October. But I didn't. So here I am, 29 days from the deadline. Time to get to work. Maybe deadline pressure will help me be efficient.

The judging criteria includes:

• Uniqueness and creativity of design or application using an 8 bit AVR microcontroller from Atmel
• Usefulness of products resulting from design or application (impact)
• Low power consumption
• Design methodology and technology
• Cost of application and incorporation
• Number of Atmel components required

I'll need to keep those in mind as I proceed through the design process.