February World Community Grid Team Challenge Planning!

[[Ion]]

Hey Team! I'm excited to announce that a new Team Challenge is in the works! This is my first time running a competition, so I'd like your input for the process! My current plan is to start the challenge either the first or second week of February (perhaps either the 6th or the 12th) and then let it run for the remainder of the month. Half-way through we would have a game giveaway as before. I have an AMD Never Settle game coupon and an AMD Nexuiz coupon that I'd be putting up for grabs there.

I'm going to see if I can get Chicken Patty to put up an announcement a few days before we start--hopefully we can recruit some new members that way.

While a competition where everyone throws in what they can is fun, prizes are all the better. In addition to the game giveaway, I'm hoping to have some more tangible prizes like in our last big event. I'm willing to offer up one or two cash (PayPal, really) prizes--probably something on the order of $20-25 each. I'm also willing to offer up spare hardware that I have. In terms of hardware prizes, I can offer up hard drives (a couple, probably), DDR2 RAM, and LGA775 CPUs. I may be willing to offer a full system--probably a Core 2 Duo-class system. Obviously, these aren't the greatest prizes, so I would love contributions. If you have hardware (or cash) that you'd be willing to donate, it would be greatly appreciated--just send a PM my way!

As far as the requirements go, the plan was to run for either two or three weeks. I'm thinking of requiring hopeful entrants to turn in points (as reported by Free-DC, unless errors crop up) at least half of the days during the contest. I was thinking that I'd also aim for a small minimum requirement in terms of points completed--maybe ten or fifteen thousand points over the course of the event. The introduction of the GPU WUs has admittedly complicated things a bit here--a HD7950 can do this in five hours, but I don't want to discount the contributions of volunteers just running a Core 2 Duo. If I can figure out a way to do it, I'm thinking of a runtime requirement instead.

I'm going to see if there's an official WCG competition that we can participate in during this event--something that will go on our permanent record should be an inspiration to crunch harder

It's a pleasure crunching with all of you, and I'd love your input so that we can make this competition as much fun as possible!

And because we can never have enough landscapes, Moraine Lake:


Prizes accumulated thus far:

• AMD Never Settle Game Promo (Ion)
• AMD Nexuiz Coupon (Ion)
• Misc DDR2 RAM, LGA775 CPUs, HDDs (Ion)
• 2x $20+ PayPal gifts (Ion)
• 2x Radeon HD7770 (mjkmike)
• i7-3930k (mjkmike)
• P9X79 Pro (mjkmike)
• Misc hardware (Mad Shot)
• $25 via PayPal (Bow)

The competition has now been announced on AnandTech and XtremeSystems--I'm hopeful that we can get a variety of other teams to join us

[NHKS]

wow! This looks to be a fantastic initiative [Ion]
you can expect some contribution from me too

but not sure how you will track the scores of team members.. can it be done in WCG or calculated from free-DC?

[[Ion]]

Originally Posted by NHKS

wow! This looks to be a fantastic initiative [Ion]
you can expect some contribution from me too

but not sure how you will track the scores of team members.. can it be done in WCG or calculated from free-DC?

Thank you for the input

I can certainly track it. I'll get a list of everyone who wants to take part, record their score at the start of the competition (from Free-DC, BOINCStats, or similar) and keep it in a spreadsheet, and then record it at the end and find the difference. And while I can track whether users have turned in points at least half of the days--it would be a pain in the ass, as I'd have to go through and look at every user profile on Free-DC, but again, it can be done, and I'll do it

Stuff like that is merely tedious--certainly not much of an impediment with enough determination

[Norton]

Great idea! - count me in for support and a donation or two -

IMHO it's easier to use the honor system and/or let the participant prove that requirements are met.... it's a far easier process

FYI- Here's a sample of the rules used from the last competition:

Requirements/terms to qualify for a prize:
- Participate in both weeks of the HCC Challenge (CPU and/or GPU)
- Earn a minimum of 25,000 BOINC points for Team WCG-TPU during the Qualifying period (see below)*
* points do not have to be all HCC work units
- Qualifying period ends when all participants reach 25,000 BOINC points or 11/28/2012 (whichever comes 1st)
- Winners will be chosen randomly at the end of the qualifying period.

Note(s):
- If for some reason you cannot participate in the 1st week of the Challenge or start late you may still qualify for the prizes, PM me or the Team Captain (Chicken Patty) to discuss your situation and we'll make those decisions on an individual basis

[[Ion]]

Originally Posted by Norton

Great idea! - count me in for support and a donation or two -

IMHO it's easier to use the honor system and/or let the participant prove that requirements are met.... it's a far easier process

FYI- Here's a sample of the rules used from the last competition:

Thanks for the ideas and support

I think those rules are good ones. I think I'll accept them verbatim, except change the date (to reflect current conditions) and the "once all users hit 25000" (I'd rather just let it run for a time interval)

[AlienIsGOD]

as always, im in

[[Ion]]

Thanks for your support Alien!

It looks like we have Chicken Patty's support, so the next step is to find an official WCG competition that we can take part in. I'd like to find one that is HCC-related so that we can wield our GPU power

[Norton]

Originally Posted by [Ion]

Thanks for your support Alien!

It looks like we have Chicken Patty's support, so the next step is to find an official WCG competition that we can take part in. I'd like to find one that is HCC-related so that we can wield our GPU power

Any competition that utilizes HCC, results returned, or total points should allow us to utilize our GPU crunching effectively

FYI- I've been looking at some of the upcoming challenges and the available ones don't seem to fit our Team as well as the 3 that we entered last November.....

Maybe we can issue our own challenge to WCG Teams this time

[[Ion]]

Originally Posted by Norton

Any competition that utilizes HCC, results returned, or total points should allow us to utilize our GPU crunching effectively

FYI- I've been looking at some of the upcoming challenges and the available ones don't seem to fit our Team as well as the 3 that we entered last November.....

Maybe we can issue our own challenge to WCG Teams this time

My thought as well. There are quite a few that run the entire length of February, but that wouldn't really be ideal. And then there are a few one or two day ones that also seem odd.
I've sent Chicken a message asking if he could create a challenge once we decide on what we want

[brandonwh64]

Im in! What do we have to do? I can leave my 6950's on 24/7 (besides game times) for this duration since the BSOD has been fixed.

[[Ion]]

Originally Posted by brandonwh64

Im in! What do we have to do? I can leave my 6950's on 24/7 (besides game times) for this duration since the BSOD has been fixed.

Basically just crunch as much as you can. I'm trying to arrange prizes to give out at the end.

However, if you have any suggestions of what you'd like to see, please offer them!

[Xenturion]

Do we in some way have to "sign up" for the competition on WCG's site, or does it automatically attribute our points toward the challenge when it starts so long as we're apart of the TPU team?

[Chevalr1c]

@Xenturion: I think must say "I am in", because there are people in the TPU team who are not TPU members. Plus some use different names for WCG compared to their names used for their TPU accounts.

I might set-up BOINC to do GPU crunching if I am asleep, doing CPU-only crunching during the day (so that workflow is not hindered). I am definitely participating in the challenge, BTW.

[[Ion]]

Originally Posted by Xenturion

Do we in some way have to "sign up" for the competition on WCG's site, or does it automatically attribute our points toward the challenge when it starts so long as we're apart of the TPU team?

Once the official challenge thread is posted, just chime in that you're interested. That's it

Originally Posted by Chevalr1c

@Xenturion: I think must say "I am in", because there are people in the TPU team who are not TPU members. Plus some use different names for WCG compared to their names used for their TPU accounts.

I might set-up BOINC to do GPU crunching if I am asleep, doing CPU-only crunching during the day (so that workflow is not hindered). I am definitely participating in the challenge, BTW.

That sounds like a great combination

[[Ion]]

mjkmike has very generously offered a LGA2011 i7, X79 board, and some HD7770s as prizes for this competition

[stinger608]

Originally Posted by [Ion]

mjkmike has very generously offered a LGA2011 i7, X79 board, and some HD7770s as prizes for this competition

Leave it to Mike to donate such awesome hardware!!!!!!!!!!

Man, I got to get my systems all set up for this!!! I could really utilize a 7770 for one of the crunching rigs!

[[Ion]]

Originally Posted by stinger608

Leave it to Mike to donate such awesome hardware!!!!!!!!!!

Man, I got to get my systems all set up for this!!! I could really utilize a 7770 for one of the crunching rigs!

I was astonished when I got the PM--I thought that he was just saying he's crunch on them for the duration of the event!

I wish you the best in your pursuit for a HD7770

[AlienIsGOD]

Though i've had luck winning games, i would really like to win a physical prize for once cheers to everyone thats donating stuff for this comp

[[Ion]]

Originally Posted by AlienIsGOD

Though i've had luck winning games, i would really like to win a physical prize for once cheers to everyone thats donating stuff for this comp

Well, we have several prizes from Mike, I plan on offering some HW and PayPal prizes, and I'm optimistic we can dig up more between now and then, so I'd say your chances are decent

[manofthem]

I don't know how I've missed this thread for several days now

Anyway I'm excited to do so most definitely, count me in

I can offer up a few games for some winners; I'll have to take a look and see what I have available.

[Ion]

[Norton]

Originally Posted by [Ion]

mjkmike has very generously offered a LGA2011 i7, X79 board, and some HD7770s as prizes for this competition

Holy Crap!!! Amazing donation from mjkmike!!! --

[[Ion]]

Originally Posted by manofthem

I don't know how I've missed this thread for several days now

Anyway I'm excited to do so most definitely, count me in

I can offer up a few games for some winners; I'll have to take a look and see what I have available.

[Ion]

Thank you for your support Manofthem! This is just a planning thread, I'll start a new thread in a few days (maybe four or five) announcing the dates and requirements and the prizes accumulated thus far. But you're certainly welcome--and games are appreciated. I have my Never Settle coupon and Nexuiz, but more is always better

Originally Posted by Norton

Holy Crap!!! Amazing donation from mjkmike!!! --

I'm simply floored

[theonedub]

Big thanks to Mike for his continued contributions. That hardware should evolve this into a 1+ month giveaway.

[[Ion]]

Originally Posted by theonedub

Big thanks to Mike for his continued contributions. That hardware should evolve this into a 1+ month giveaway.

So you'd like me to stretch this out a bit? Maybe ~8 February until ~10 March?

[theonedub]

That would be a nice extension.