LM: Life

Sneak Peek of Next Design Competition. Are you a “GameChanger”?

noreply@blogger.com (Ari) — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 18:28:00 +0000

Local Motors has teamed up with Shell Oil Company’s GameChanger program to launch our next vehicle design competition: DRIVEN of Relevant and Innovative Vehicles for Energy Needs (DRIVEN).

Your Challenge: Design a vehicle that could be produced in the next 5-10 years for one of 5 chosen locations: Sao Paolo, Basra, Bangalore, Amsterdam or Houston. Your vehicle design should use locally sourced energy and materials, and should help address social challenges that each of these locations are currently facing.

When can you start? Next week! Tuesday, January 17. The competition’s design brief will be posted on our website on that day.

In the meantime, check out our Shell GameChanger DRIVEN pre-launch video which aired at our Local Motors Designer’s Night in Paris today. This should get your ideas on the fast track to creating a GameChanger vehicle of the future.

LM Forging Tour

noreply@blogger.com (Gibus) — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 19:36:00 +0000

With the recent launch of The Forge, your new space for automotive co-creation, we realized now is the perfect time to take our collaboration one step further – we want to go from online to in-person. In the first months of 2012, we want to meet as many of you as possible. Now is a time of incredible development at Local Motors as we lay our plans to expand internationally. As always, we want to remain continually in-tune with your desires, and desires of the community we all represent. We need your feedback and we want it so much we’re flying to you to get it !

Starting January 1 through the end of March, Damien Declercq aka Gibus, head of new business development for Local Motors, will be leading “The Forging Tour” to visit you and fellow community members in your hometown. The following is the preliminary schedule of the tour:
January: Europe
February: Asia
March: Oceania, Africa, South America

Even if your part of the world is not yet on the calendar, you should still fill out the Form – how else will we know to include your area on the next trip?

As part of our international expansion plans, you and your fellow community can play a significant role in the following key areas:

1)     LM Labs
In 2012, Local Motors is planning to launch at least four vehicular-focused Hackerspaces, community-operated physical places where people can meet and work on projects, called LM Labs. A LM Lab will be fundamentally opened and driven by the Local Motors community, with the guidance and initial funding of Local Motors. The LM Labs will leverage resources from Local Motors’ partnerships such as a hardware tool manufacturer to be announced in the coming weeks.

2)     Micro Factory
Local Motors has future plans to open additional Micro Factories globally, similar to the 16,000 square-foot factory in the U.S., in areas that have active community members interested in leading the charge. During the Forging Tour, Local Motors will scope prospective sites and your input on demand for a Micro Factory in your market and prospective locations would be valuable and greatly appreciated.

3)     Recruit Engineering & Design Challenges
The Forge allows OEMs, aftermarket companies, educational institutions and hobbyists to engage with the community for ideas, design and engineering development. We want to work with you to recruit partner companies to co-host engineering and design challenges Which innovative companies could benefit from collaborating with you and your fellow LM community?

It is incredibly exciting to bring new vehicle design challenges to a community of very passionate contributors.

So engage and fill in the form by following this link: http://forge.local-motors.com/forgingtour

A Video Introduction to The Forge

noreply@blogger.com (Nyko aka idesigncars) — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 16:49:00 +0000

Over the weekend our Tech Team continued to work hard to improve the performance of the Forge and tackle bugs once we began receiving feedback from you, the community.
I spent my sunday bug testing and creating a quick screencast for you to watch where I walk you through The Forge at Local Motors and explain some of the features we added, such as the new image viewers, and the 3D CAD viewer... as well as why we made some of the choices we made. There are a few more screencasts to come, so stay tuned, but this first one is 13 minutes, so that should keep you busy for a while and help you get a better understanding for The Forge. So Check it out below and feel free to leave us any feedback you may have. Hint-- you may want to click the video to watch it full screen, as it is kind of small on this blog.

noreply@blogger.com (Nyko aka idesigncars) — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 21:49:00 +0000

Welcome to The Forge at Local Motors

The Next Evolution for Automotive Co-Creation has begun! After months of hard work and a few sleepless nights, the web team at Local Motors rolled out The Forge website early this morning. The new site offers many features asked for by the community to help enable community members to work on their projects and enhance the co-creative process.

Here is a list of the new features that launched this morning:

• New Work Flow: Projects - More on this below.

• Solid Edge Design1 -- Download and use fully parametric CAD software for a $19.95/Mo Subscrption

• New Image Viewer

• New 3D CAD Viewer

• New File Uploader-- you can now upload multiple files at once!

• New ability to upload 48 and counting different file types: You can now upload CAD Files, Photoshop PSD's, PDF's, Text documents, Excel sheets, Movies, Illustrator documents, etc!

• Enhanced commenting features-- use multiple pictures in your comments

• New Content palette

• Image Likes

• Community Rank

• Skill Set ranking in your profile

Those are what launched this morning. Here is a short list of what is to come:

• User Generated Contests-- You can now run your own competitions

• Content Tagging

• Drag and Drop File Uploading

• File and content management tools-- enhanced content palette

• Project and Member Following

• The ability to see who liked your work

• Related Projects

• and more...!

Projects: The new workflow at The Forge:

Projects are perhaps the most significant feature and change the Forge has to offer. Say goodbye to the Checkup, Competition Entry, Design Process, and Build Story, and get ready to start having fun with your projects.

Projects are our way of streamlining the design and development process in on simple unit-- "A Project". Now you can showcase your work, gain feedback, add revisions, highlight certain aspects of your work, enter your work into a competition, then have your work printed in 3D using the same "Project". So instead of having a checkup to show your work and gain feedback, and then creating a separate competition entry to compete, and then a separate design process to continue developing an idea, and then a separate build story to cover your fabrication of your idea, you now will have the ability to start one single project, and take that from concept to reality. This means projects entered into a competition will retain all of the history so that other community members will be able to see why you made the decisions you did with your design. In Short, a Project allows community members to take an idea from concept to reality while sharing the entire design process and all of the steps in between the first napkin sketch and the final rolling vehicle. It is a totally new workflow at Local Motors and we are very excited to begin using it. We hope you are too!

This is only the Beginning!

The site that launched this morning is only the beginning of what is to come, the first small step to creating the ultimate co-creation and collaborative automotive development space on the web. For many of our readers and users, you may notice the site looks drastically different than the old "StudioHome" you were used to. You may also notice the site taking longer than usual to load, as well as many bugs and glitches. This is normal, and we are aware of many bugs. Over the next few months, the Local Motors Tech team will be working extremely hard to update and improve the website and turn it into an extremely fun and creative space. For now, feel free to send us any feedback you may have, and share any features you would like us to incorporate. If you run into bugs, please let us know and we will try to tackle them as soon as we can. We love to tackle bugs so don't be shy!

So without further ado, check out The Forge at Local Motors, feel free to poke around, and have fun, check out the new features, and let us know how we can make it better. Stay tuned over the next few days for some screencasts to walk you though the site and explain many of the new features.

Forge Ahead! Go Local!

The Forge at Local Motors: An Introduction.

noreply@blogger.com (Nyko aka idesigncars) — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 01:19:00 +0000

Back in 2008, Local Motors released an "updated" version of the Local Motors website, which has pretty much been our tool for co-creation for the past three years. It is a testament to the creativity, and ability of Tim Thomas, our CIO, who for the most part coded and maintained the whole website with only one other team member. Our Tech Team at Local Motors was super small, and what they were able to build three years ago is nothing short of incredible.

Since then, during the past three years, your feedback has flowed in, and we have heard you loud and clear. We kept a list of features and updates that you, the community, requested, and we were listening. As the community grew, and the projects Local Motors was beginning to work on became more complex, exciting, and broad, it became clear that it was time for a new co-creation platform, a new website, and a new way of coming together to make some of the most awesome vehicles and components the world will see.

And thus the idea of The Forge was born. Some of you may know it as Local Forge, that was its early name. Many of you are still unclear as to what The Forge is, why it's coming, and when it will Launch. So let me clear all of that up, because what will launch on 11.11.11 is really, very cool!

Welcome to The Forge at Local Motors!

What it is: The forge is the new co-creative space at Local Motors. It is where Designers, Engineers, CAD Modelers, and Fabricators can come together, showcase their work, collaborate on projects, and transform ideas into real objects. For those members who are used to the current Local Motors Website, think about it like this: The Forge is the old StudioHome on steroids!

The Forge is new in that it welcomes anyone who is interested in automotive-- engineers, CAD Modelers, and Fabricators, this is now your home too!

Gone are words like Portfolios, Checkups, Sketch Competitions, etc. But don't worry, those functions still exist: Showcases are the new portfolios, Projects are the new checkup, and Competitions are defined by the guidelines.

We've added many new features that we think you will love on The Forge: Drag-and-Drop Uploading with the ability to upload multiple files simultaneously, Tagging, and a totally new way of viewing images, to name a few. We've also added an online CAD viewer!! Yup, now you will be able to spin CAD models and take measurements right from your web browser! Check back in a few days for a post on that! And that is just a few of the features we've added.

The Local Motors team has been working extremely hard for the past 4 months to make sure you get a truly amazing co-creation platform. I know many of you have been wondering what happened to Nyko-- lets just say that you will be hearing a lot more from me once this site launches!

So there you have it, a quick introduction to The Forge. If you have any questions, feel free to ask in the comments, or on the LM Forums. We would love to hear any questions or feedback you may have.

Lastly, today kicks off the 7 days of 7 Features on The Forge, so check back during the next week for daily detailed writeups of the new features that can be found on The Forge!

Announcement! Active Lifestyle Vehicle of the Year Ride-and-Drive at LM

noreply@blogger.com (Ari) — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 14:15:00 +0000

We're stoked to host the annual Active Lifestyle Vehicle of the Year Ride-and-Drive at Local Motors on October 22nd. Stoked.

Details in the press release below...

15 September 2011

Active Lifestyle Vehicle of the Year Ride-and-Drive

Elite and area athletes test drive moves to Phoenix

Eight years ago, three endurance athletes founded the Active Lifestyle Vehicle of the Year program to help manufacturers understand the specific car and truck needs of buyers with active lifestyles. Active.com founder Jim Woodman, Ironman Hall of Fame member Bob Babbitt, and former Chicago Sun-Times columnist Nina Russin wanted to give automakers direct contact with people who, like themselves, have specific ergonomic, cargo and performance demands for their vehicles.

Each year, the program invites car manufacturers to enter vehicles in seven categories:
Urban: Small fuel-efficient vehicles priced at or below $20,000 with versatile cargo areas.
Best value on-road: Vehicles priced at or below $35,000 intended primarily for on-road use.
Best value off-road: Vehicles priced at or below $35,000 with true off-road capability.
Luxury on-road: Vehicles priced above $35,000 intended primarily for on-road use.
Luxury off-road: Vehicles priced above $35,000 with true off-road capability
Green ALV: Active lifestyle vehicles with hybrid or alternative fuel powertrains
Family: Active lifestyle vehicles with three rows of seating.

Thirteen nationally-recognized automotive journalists drive the entries as part of their work. Panelists include SCCA Hall of Fame member and AutoWeek founder, Denise McCluggage, Off-Road Motorsports Hall of Fame Member and freelance journalist, Sue Mead, automotive author and AutoWeek contributor, Larry Edsall, Popular Mechanics editor, Larry Webster, AAA Arizona senior vice-president, Jim Prueter and others.

Journalists narrow the field down to four finalists in each category. These vehicles come to Phoenix for a one-day ride-and-drive program on October 22 at Local Motors, where athletes drive and evaluate them.

Seventy elite and area athletes will attend this year's program. The athletes participate in a variety of sports, including ball sports, paddling, triathlon, hand gliding, rock climbing, running and cycling. After hearing presentations from product specialists, they will test drive the vehicles on both on and off-road courses.

Six members of the automotive jury panel will attend the Phoenix event. Members of the media are also invited to participate.

Voting is weighted 50/50, with the athletes' votes being equivalent to the automotive journalists in the final tally. Awards announcements take place at the conclusion of the October 22 program.

2011 is the first year for the ride-and-drive program to come to Phoenix. Programs have previously taken place in San Diego and South Bend, Indiana. Local Motors, the host to this year's program, is an American auto manufacturer which invites buyers to participate in the design and build-up of their vehicles at its micro-factories. Local Motors builds the Rally Fighter, an off-road desert racer, at its Arizona micro-factory located off the Maricopa Road exit from the 10 freeway in Chandler.

"We are passionate about giving voice to niche communities of car enthusiasts, and that is exactly what this program allows," said Local Motors CEO Jay Rogers. "Local Motors designers and engineers will be present to learn more about active lifestyle athletes, and someday we'll hope to collaborate and co-create a unique Active Lifestyle Vehicle, or ALV with this community of athletes. In the meantime, we hope the athletes will get a kick out of the Rally Fighter, an agile street-legal vehicle designed and built by a community of off-road enthusiasts."

For additional information about the October 22 ALV ride-and-drive, log onto www.Carspondent.com, or contact Jim Prueter at 602-526-7926.

Local Motors Home-built Tandem Project

noreply@blogger.com (Nyko aka idesigncars) — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 15:59:00 +0000

The Tandem project began life as a simple call for help in the forums, and has since transformed into a full design and build effort. The main goals are to develop a tandem kit car that can be assembled in an average garage space with limited tools, it will be easy to maintain and modify, and will cost less than $10,000 to build. This is not Local Motors' next flagship vehicle, but we want to support hot new ideas when we see one. Because of this the Micro Factory is honored to donate staff time (me) and development space for the first prototype! Funds to buy components (engine, wheels, ect) and build materials (tube, welding supplies) will be crowd funded through Kickstarter. This is because, unlike the Rally Fighter, Local Motors has no plans to retain any commercial rights for this car. This design will be completely open and will test many of the "built to mod" features that will be incorporated into Gen 2 of the Rally Fighter. Imagine this car as a platform. The design will be documented in such a way that there will be common mounting points for all hardware. Want to design a new body? Design to this mounting pattern. Designing a cool new instrument panel? Here is the CAD for the mounting points. Think about it, as long as certain quality requirements are met anyone could create and sell there own Tandem mods, kits or fully assembled cars.

Want to help out? We are kicking off the body design process tomorrow (Sep 9th)! We will keep it open for three weeks (Sep 30th), at which time the community will vote on the proposals and a winner will rise to the top. If you are not into body design we will be continuing to work out the chassis, suspension, and systems design during the same time period. So, no matter who you are we've got something for you! For more information checkout the Tandem project space here, or contact me directly at (425) 330-9135 / iolson@local-motors.com.

-Isaac

Terra Prix 2085: The winners Podium

noreply@blogger.com (Nyko aka idesigncars) — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 19:22:00 +0000

Today marks the end of the Terra Prix 2085 Concept Design Competition created by the Local Motors community for the Local Motors community. This competition was designed for fun, and brought about several changes to how Local Motors ran this competition: We invited a panel of world class judges-- Harald Belker, Syd Mead, Scott Robertson, and Daniel Simon -- to help select the winners. We gave you a voting dashboard to help you vote. We extended the submission time and the voting times to give you the most time to make this competition worthwhile. In short, we listened to you, because you showed us what each and every one of you was truly capable of. The results were astounding-- the work from this competition is some of the highest quality work that we have seen on Local Motors, and it was clear that every single participant put their best step forward. If you had an entry in Terra Prix 2085, congratulations, you were part of a revolutionary competition at Local Motors! And now, one of the best changes we brought about-- a podium of 10 total winners. One note about the winners -- there were two who were selected both by the Judging Panel and by the community in top spots. As there were many entries that deserved recognition, if an entry received a judges pick, we selected the next community choice to fill that spot. So without delaying any longer, here are the winners.

Judging Panel Winners:

1st Place: Terrahornet
Designer: André Doumenc aka Dededoum

2nd Place: Squadro
Designer: Mahdi Garoosi a.k.a. Impulse

3rd Place: Maloka
Designer: mark przeslawski a.k.a. markprez

Community Selection:
1st Place: Global Spirit Racing
Designer: Apollinar aka Apollinar

2nd Place: Team Berserker
Designer: Paulo Enacana��o a.k.a. Paulo

3rd Place: SWARM
Designer: Luci_uded aka Acatrinei Lucian Nicolae

4th Place: World Raider
Designer: bhushan a.k.a. neo

5th Place: Granville Bro.s Gee Bee R-3 TPx-HR
Designer: Bentley Boy aka Greg Macy

Best Design for entrants under 18: SURGE
Designer: Judgemental541 aka Justin Salmon

Wildest and Wackiest Design: Team Tell: Gigernaut HAR1
Designer: Botzen aka Eric Strebel

Judging Panel Special Mentions:

Terra Prix EU Team by Harlok

Most Elegant Plane: Lucky Team 21 by Lude

Global Spirit Racing by Apollinar

Local Motors Design Team Special Mentions:

Team Stealth by MasonBW17

Buggy Run by Superdade

Alopex World Explorer by Gustavo Italiani

Congratulations to all! I will be in touch with all of you later today to personally congratulate you and begin the process of getting your prizes to you!

Terra Prix 2085: The community has oudone themselves! Now Vote!

noreply@blogger.com (Nyko aka idesigncars) — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Terra Prix 2085 stared a few months ago as an idea generated by you, the Local Motors design community. I helped massage the idea and package it, but ultimately the ideas and concepts behind Terra Prix came from you. This was your first competition designed by you, for you. As a conceptual design competition, and because the Local Motors design community is such an incredible community, I reached out to Scott Robertson, Harald Belker, Syd Mead and Daniel Simon to judge this competition, as I thought it would be a lot of fun for them to see what you could do. I know you would appreciate having such a world class judging panel...

What happened last Tuesday night was truly remarkable. As the entries started to flow in, it became clear that each and every contestant put their best foot forward to try and show their best work. The quality of the work blew my mind. I know that we have a lot of very talented community members, but I think even some of our community members surprised even themselves with what they were capable of producing. And then I started receiving e-mails thanking me for running such a fun competition -- well, you are welcome, but THANK YOU for letting me run this competition. More importantly, to those who participated, thank you for your incredible level of work! I know that each entry represents hours and hours of work. I know that every participant put their heart into this competition, you can just tell when you browse the projects. Each and every one of you who participated in this competition should be extremely proud of the work you were able to create, and that you got your entries in by the deadline.

Since last Wednesday the voting period has been opened up, and the ambiance in the community has been extremely positive and friendly! It is great to see such nice exchanges happening within the comments, and I am happy people commenting and sharing their feedback.

But one question remains: Have you cast your vote yet?

As many of you know there are 72 entries, which is actually very manageable to vote on-- but the vast majority of the entries still have under 40 votes cast on them. It is important to keep in mind that voting is a two way street: If you submitted an entry, and you want people to vote on your entry, you should vote on the entries of other participants. Every entry should have AT LEAST 70 votes and no less. If you submitted an entry, I highly encourage you to vote on every entry-- if every entrant votes on every entry, there will be 70 votes, and the voting will be much more fair. Every participant spent a lot of time on these entries, and it is only fair that each participant shows respect for their peers work by casting votes. So please, cast your vote on your peers work, you may be surprised when you all of a sudden receive more votes on your own entry!

Terra Prix 2085: Get your entry approved!

noreply@blogger.com (Nyko aka idesigncars) — Fri, 10 Jun 2011 00:07:00 +0000

The Deadline:
The deadline to submit your entry for Terra Prix 2085, Tuesday June 14th at 23:59;59, is quickly approaching, and to help ensure your entry is approved as soon as possible we thought we would give you a few tips.

Where Are the entries?
Some of you may have noticed that it appears there are no entries that have been submitted-- which is unusual compared to past Local Motors competitions. Don't Panic!

Local Motors is trying something new for this design competition. Backed by popular demand from the community, we are holding off on approving entries until all entries have been submitted. Once all entries have been submitted, we will approve all of them at the same time. This will help ensure a more fair voting system for everyone. As it was asked for by the community, we wanted to try it for this competition.

Post yours as a checkup first!
Because of the fact we are holding off on approving entries until the night of June 14th, we highly encourage you to post a version of your entry to a checkup to get feedback on it and make sure it meets all of the requirements. Over 75% of Local Motors competition winners used the checkup function, and submitted some of their work early on. We encourage you to do the same to improve your chances of a win! Hey, there are 10 prizes, so more than 3x the chances that you will be a prize winner.

Use the Forums:
If you have any questions, feel free to post them in the forum or ask me via e-mail or on my profile wall (idesigncars). We will try to respond to your questions as quickly and concisely as possible.

Read the Requirements and Deliverables one last time...
To ensure a speedy approval, we highly encourage you to read over the requirements and the deliverables one more time before submitting. Use the checklist included in the ignition kit to help you as well.

Submit Early
Once you are sure you have met the requirements, if you submit early we will look over your entry and if we see anything that is missing. If there are is indeed something missing, will be in touch with you shortly after you submit. Keep in mind that on the night of the 14th, we may be swamped with many entries, so if you want your entry to show up on the morning of the 15th, submit a day or two early. You can submit as many times as you'd like before the 14th to update your designs.

Last Chance
If you submit on the night of the 14th, but your entry is missing some required items, we will let you know what it is missing and how to update your entry. We will give you a 24 hour window to submit. No more entries will be accepted after 12:00h Noon June 16th.

Have Fun!
Above all, have fun. This competition is about having fun, great design, and challenging your imagination. Do your best, but keep in mind we are here to help, and we want all of you to have a great time. Don't stress too much.

Judging:
Many of you have questions about how the judging will work. So without further adoo here's how:

The design community asked for a judging panel, but many of you liked voting on your peers work as well, so we decided to give you the best of both worlds: A world class panel of judges, and the ability to vote on your peers work.

The judges will look at all of the entries and each of them will create a short list of their favorite entries, which will then be combined into the ultimate short list and then the top 3 will be chosen from that list.

The community will vote on your favorite entries, and, as in past competitions, the community will determine the winning entry.

For the wildest and wackiest prize the LM design team will choose this entry.

Again if you have any questions about how any of this will work, don't hesitate to let us know.

Now, get back to your designs....
Alright, enough of my talk, time to get back to your designs. We hope this has helped you, and again, if you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask us.

4M: Tonight! See the Building of the "Flypmode"

noreply@blogger.com (Ari) — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 14:09:00 +0000

TODAY! Tuesday, June 7th - RSVP!

This is a kind reminder to please join us this evening for food, celebration of a project in progress, and an inside scoop on how to co-create and build the new "Flypmode" vehicle made for DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency)

As you know, we typically host 4M on the second Tuesday of each month - but this month we're hosting it on the FIRST Tuesday instead, which is today.

This is a special sneak-peek event. Join us!

As usual, bring $2 for a delicious Short Leash Hotdog

Terra Prix 2085: It's 74 years away, what's another week eh?

noreply@blogger.com (Nyko aka idesigncars) — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 06:48:00 +0000

Fellow Terra Prix participants and designers: We have extended the Terra Prix 2085 Design competition by one week! Hey, the Race is 74 years away, so what is another week for this challenge?

On Tuesday afternoon, when the submission window opened for this competition, I noticed a few discussions about more time and comments like "I wish I had more time" floating around in the comments on the website. By Wednesday morning, after talking with a few Local Motors community members, it became clear to me that there was a real demand for an extra week of time. Many of you had just finished your spring semester at school, while others were dealing the challenges of every day life. And then there were those of you who want to do your best work because you will be showing it to such a prestigious judging panel.

After listening to you, I began the process of shifting the dates of other internal projects we have going on here, working with the organizers of some upcoming competitions, and reaching out to the judging panel to get more time for you for this competition.

Late this evening I received the final confirmation that I needed to green light a one week extension. All four judges, Scott Robertson, Harald Belker, Syd Mead, and Daniel Simon graciously agreed to an extension.

What this means is that the submission period has been extended until June 14th at 23:59:59 EST (UTC-4). So now you have the time to put your final touches on your design, submit a checkup to get feedback, and ask more last minute questions.

We wish you the best of luck, and are excited to see what you've been working on! Now, take a deep breath, enjoy an evening with your family or significant other this friday, and then get back to work on the weekend :)

Terra Prix 2085: The complete guide to getting started!

noreply@blogger.com (Nyko aka idesigncars) — Wed, 25 May 2011 15:23:00 +0000

Local Motors Terra Prix 2085: Race the World!

Terra Prix 2085, Local Motors latest design competition kicked off on May 10th, and is starting to show some great ideas as checkups start coming in. This competition is really exciting for Local Motors for several reasons, but mainly because we have an incredible judging panel consisting of Harald Belker, Scott Robertson, Syd Mead, and Daniel Simon. They will take a look at your final designs during the week of June 7th-June 14th, and then work to select their three top picks.

Right Now, Terra Prix has just hit the half way point, and I wanted to take a moment to address some of the questions I have received from the community over the past few weeks, and give you some food for thought as you work on your projects.

This is about Fun:

The goal behind the Terra Prix 2085 design competition was to celebrate great design and have a lot of fun. We all love competitions that have strict requirements because there is the potential for the winning design to be built, such as the case was with the XC2V design competition. Part of the fun of those competitions is the challenge to meet the strict requirements and guidelines. But ever now and then it is nice to just have fun, and let your imagination go wild, and be completely free to design something that excites you, and pushes your creativity to the next level. That was the goal behind Terra Prix 2085 -- Have a blast and challenge your imagination. Most of us know how to draw a car, but when have we had the chance to design a flying support craft, or a futuristic vehicle designed to race across the world? When was the last time you were not constrained by the necessity of four wheels, a windshield, hinged doors, and the need to place an internal combustion engine somewhere? This is your chance to really free yourself and explore new shapes, new dimensions, new rendering styles, new packaging ideas, and propose interesting ideas for how your vehicle and systems would work! So let yourself go, and have fun!

This is about Design:

As the winning design from this competition won't be built until 2085 (yes, when I am 100 years old, I will make sure the winning design is built, you got that!) it is important for now to put more of an emphasis on creating the most flat out awesome looking design you can think of-- after all that is the primary criteria you will be judged on. I wouldn't get too bogged down in drivetrain details -- remember if it is based on physics or emerging technologies, then you should be fine to incorporate those ideas into your presentation. When Bentley Boy asked me if he could use his idea of Leprechauns to drive his vehicle, I gave him the green light-- it was fun and would add an interesting design element to his project. Keep in mind that the more strict you are about each others' use of technology, the less fun and creative this competition will be. I would encourage all of you to work with each other to share information about emerging technologies, but try not to get TOO distracted by the drivetrains and technologies used in the designs. Other than the required mechanical drive systems, size specifications, and no use of thrust systems, I will not be judging technologies during the approval process. During the voting period, people will be looking for the best, most creative and emotionally evocative design. With that in mind, let your pen or stylus go wild and let yourself be driven by design!

How to Get Started:

I have received questions from some members about how to get started on a competition like this-- for some this is the first time they have been challenged to really think about a vehicle in a very different sense than they typical car. My best recommendation is to start with Speedforms. Speedforms are shapes that evoke the notion of speed. The best way to get started is to grab a piece of paper and just begin sketching shapes that look fast. Don't think about wheels, or packaging, windows, drivetrains, suspension-- just focus on creating shapes that look fast, that look like they are speeding on paper. Don't worry about being precise or clean, just put your hand down and let yourself go. I spent about an hour today loosely sketching some speedforms to share with you what I mean.
The next step in the process is to pick 3 or 4 of these forms to develop and take to the next step. One way of doing this is by imagining the shape in 3D, and then outlining what that shape might be on another sheet of paper or cardboard, cutting it out, and folding it to have a 3D representation of your sketch. This is a great, quick way to really feel if you have achieved a shape that looks fast. In addition to this, it can help you with your design process as you have your first "mini model" to base your sketches off of.

Once you have your speedform, you can begin thinking about wheels, powertrain, packaging, and the technicalities of you design. These elements are sure to change the design a bit, but be flexible -- the speedform is just the first step in the process.

Tiny Chats are back!
Starting this ~~Thursday,~~ Saturday TinyChats are back! I will be working hard to bring back TinyChat Tuesdays, but will hold a special TinyChat session this Thursday. Stay tuned to the Local Motors website for more information on timing and a direct link to the chat room, but we are excited to begin hosting them again on a weekly basis to answer your questions about competitions and Local Motors.

So, with that said, stay tuned to a lot of updates coming very soon to the Local Motors StudioHome page. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask in the LM forums, or in the comments here!

Engineering Design Blitzes: #1 was a great success, heres to more!

noreply@blogger.com (Nyko aka idesigncars) — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 19:58:00 +0000

There is something new at Local Motors: The Engineering Design Blitz.

An Engineering Design Blitz is basically a way of giving the design, engineering and enthusiast communities a way to develop real solutions for key parts on Local Motors vehicles. The winning design will be rapidly manufactured, tested, and used on the Local Motors vehicle it was designed for.

The first Local Motors Engineering Design Blitz to design a Door Sill Kick Plate was a great success! With a total of 12 official entries that were all very well executed, choosing the winning design wasn't easy. Anthony Franze aka Franze won the first blitz with his design which incorporated the Rally Fighter name and the customizable build number into the design. In addition to this it met all of the criteria and was easy to manufacture. Congratulations Anthony. To all of the participants, thank you for your participation in the first Blitz and we hope to see you back for more!

Below you will see all of the designs that were submitted to this Blitz. Normally we don't showcase them on our blog, but because the Blitz is so new, we are still working out some kinks with how to show them on our website.

Today marks the start of the Second Engineering design Blitz, for a Rear View Mirror Mount. If you missed out on the first Engineering Design Blitz, I highly encourage you to head over to the Local Motors website and check out this one. More complexity, more fun, and more money too!

Congratulations to DARPA XC2V Participants & WINNERS!

noreply@blogger.com (Ari) — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 20:00:00 +0000

Congratulations to the Local Motors' community who has successfully supported the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's (DARPA) "Experimental Crowd-derived Combat-Support Vehicle (XC2V) Design Challenge.

It is very exciting to see more companies and entities test the waters to design cars through co-creation, much like Local Motors has done with the Rally Fighter. The winners have been announced!

Images below, and DARPA-issued press release follows.

The first place design, Flypmode, will be prototyped between now and June. The entire development process will be shared and visible through www.local-motors.com.

1) The FLYPMODE - Victor Garcia (United State) - $7,500 award + this design will be prototyped

2) The KRATOS - Marc Senger (United States) - $1,500 award

3) The Sentinel - Romain Chareyre (France) - $1,000 award

Again, congratulations to each of over 150 participants!

Here is the DARPA-issued statement which can also be found here.

March 15, 2011

How novel of a design of a vehicle body might a crowd produce? And how fast? That was the goal of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's (DARPA) Experimental Crowd-derived Combat-support Vehicle (XC2V) Design Challenge, which launched on February 3. A creative, innovative design community stepped up to complete the first part of that goal.

The XC2V Design Challenge asked individuals to co-create a vehicle body design for two different missions-Combat Reconnaissance and Combat Delivery & Evacuation - and submit these concepts for vote. This competitive challenge prompted designers to push the limits of creative design. Feedback from the crowd enabled designers to incorporate novel ideas and concepts.

More than 150 design entries were received and validated. Some of the entries that rose to the top included innovations for modularity, increased visibility, unique personnel carrying strategies, optimal equipment usage, and ease of ingress and egress. The top-three entries included many of these concepts. Voting ended March 10, 2011, and the winning vehicle will become a functional concept car in June of this year. The top three design choices are:

1) The FLYPMODE - Victor Garcia (United State)

2) The KRATOS - Marc Senger (United States)

3) The Sentinel - Romain Chareyre (France)

With winners selected using current methods -the program turns to an analysis of crowd-sourced selection. The next research question becomes, how could crowd-sourced selection contribute to the goals of Defense manufacturing? Fundamental questions remain regarding the role of diversity vice expertise in such design and selection tasks. In the coming weeks DARPA will include potential vehicle end users in alternative engagements. This follow-on study seeks more answers and may allow for a second vehicle to be built. Side-by-side evaluation between crowd-selected and end-user-selected vehicles will be conducted.

Stay tuned for more as DARPA continues its research for the best methodology to get the best products in the hands of the warfighters in the shortest time possible.

Visit the XC2V challenge webpage at http://www.local-motors.com/XC2Vfor complete challenge details, to register, and see the winning designs.

Spread the word and stay informed by following the XC2V challenge on Facebook and Twitter.

(http://www.facebook.com/DARPA) and Twitter (http://twitter.com/darpa_news) .

Watch the Rally Fighter Prep and Race the Parker 425 Off-Road Race

noreply@blogger.com (Ari) — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 16:36:00 +0000

Watch the episodic from start to finish.

Now that the Rally Fighter has completed its first off-road race we can share what we've learned with our customers.

Next time around you may see more than one Rally Fighter in the Parker 425. And after that, maybe you'll see a whole Rally Fighter class where owners can race one another. That.would.be.awesome.

Episode 1:

Episode 2:

Episode 3:

Episode 4:

TinyChat Round II: Saturday Feb 26

noreply@blogger.com (Nyko aka idesigncars) — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 23:49:00 +0000

You've been working late nights, you've been giving feedback to other community members, you've been asking others for help, and your still working hard.... and I am sure you have questions too!

Well, as promised, we will be holding another TinyChat session tomorrow, Saturday February 26th at 12:00h MST (UTC-7) which means that it would be:

04:00h in Tokyo

cross the pond...

11:00h in L.A.
13:00h in Detrioit
14:00h in New York

cross the pond....

19:00h in London
20:00h in Paris
21:00h in Bucharest
00:30h in Mumbai

Last week's chat was extremely successful and we had about 30 people show up.

This week we will have a few of the DARPA feelows here in Phoenix to help answer some of your questions.

I encourage you to attend to have your questions answered as I am sure you have many questions floating around--- this is your chance to have them answered.

I look forward to seeing you there!

Nyko and the LM design team.

Rally Fighter Race Footage - coming soon

noreply@blogger.com (Ari) — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 21:29:00 +0000

So far we have shared 3 short episodes to tell the story of the first race with our Rally Fighter.

The next one is probably the most exciting since it covers race day and it's coming soon!

It will be shared on Friday afternoon, and will first be posted to the Local Motors facebook page - become a fan and you can be the first to view!

And if you're a community member at local-motors.com you'll receive a link to the video in your newsletter.

At one point the rear axle on the Rally Fighter broke. We had all hands on deck to fix it. Most of the people helping us make the repair didn't work with LM, they were all members of the community which makes this a real experience to be shared.

Thanks to everyone who helped us finish!

And thanks for watching & sharing the video.

XC2V Challenge: "Think outside of the box"...Think outside the body, and inspire yourself!

noreply@blogger.com (Nyko aka idesigncars) — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 05:54:00 +0000

As the checkups pour in from around the world, there seems to be this overwhelming notion that a military vehicle has to have flat sides, has to look heavy, and that it has to have a closed body with glass and armored panels.

But Why?

You may want to take a second and ask why the XC2V has to have a closed, covered body, and why it has glass windows, etc.

Why does it have to essentially "be a box?"

It is not a requirement.

During this weekends Tinychat session, we dismissed the notion that the vehicle had to be closed. There is no problem with leaving the vehicle completely open. There is no problem with relying on the soldiers wearing goggles and face masks to protect their faces instead of using a windshield.

This is your opportunity to literally, "think outside the box"! And we encourage you do just that!

We know that the military can make heavy, robust, boxy military vehicles. We know that they have a lot of vehicles that currently do a good job for what they are intended for.

But currently they don't have fast, light weight, highly capable vehicle that is capable of traversing rough terrain while delivering supplies or personnel to remote or difficult-to-access areas.

So to put it in perspective:

Right now the military is using Dirt bikes, 4x4 ATV vehicles, and the next step up from a 4x4 ATV is the Humvee-- a drastic difference in capabilities and performance.

The XC2V would be the vehicle that would essentially slot between a 4x4 ATV and the Humvee.

4x4: Can go anywhere, but has limited range. Very little cargo room, one rider, and can carry up to 2 wounded soldiers. Requires the driver to drive with both hands - no passenger to navigate, observe, or defend. 4x4's are Light, easy to deploy, but have no armor or protection, but are still widely used because of what they CAN do.

Now the Humvee: The Humvee is widely used in all branches of the military. It is the modern day icon of what a military vehicle is -- huge, heavy, and mean looking. There are several variations of the Humvee- from personnel carriers to cargo carriers to lightweight tactical versions. But the Humvee is big and bulky, and because of this is not as fast and as capable as a 4x4, especially when it is heavily armored.

The "Ninja" Vehicle:

You may have already heard me say this, but I will include this for the community: Think of the XC2V as the the ninja vehicle of the military. Ninjas are generally highly capable and agile, only the weaponry they need for their mission, are extremely observant (spies), and rely on speed, not strength or armor, to be highly effective and get into and out of potentially dangerous situations. They generally fight only when they have to to defend themselves.

If you think of the XC2V in these terms, you may begin to realize that speed and agility of the XC2V may be just as effective if not more effective than a closed, armored body.

So, again, Why a box?

In 1996 design student Nik Smart challenged the notion of the sports car as we know it with his LSC Concept (Lightweight Sports Car), which later became the Ariel Atom. The Atom is still to this day one of the best performing sports cars you can drive, and a large part of that is because of its skeletal, super-lightweight yet strong chassis design. Nik Smart essentially turned the conventional super car design on its head and and designed a car around only the essentials for one of the best driving experiences to date. There is almost no body to the Atom, and no windshield as evidenced by Jeremy Clarkson when he takes one for a spin, and why would it need either?

Back in 2005 Mercedes released a revolutionary vehicle-- The Mercedes-Benz bionic car, that transformed our notion of what an aerodynamic vehicle could look like. But even more revolutionary was the unique space frame that underpinned the bionic car, inspired by the bone structure of the boxfish that inspired the cars overall design. Strong, lightweight, and effective.

In 2008 BMW challenged the concept of what the body of a car was with the Gina Concept. Chris Bangle, lead designer at BMW at the time said noted that most of the strength in a vehicle is take care of by the internal skeleton of a vehicle, and questioned why bodies of cars used metal body panels. By using cloth, a whole new body could be put on the Gina Concept in just under 2 hours, and the weight of the vehicle was drastically reduced.

In addition to these automotive examples, the concept of exposing support structures has worked its way into modern architecture-- Take a look at the blog below for some great inspiration:
http://www.suckerpunchdaily.com/tag/architecture/

If you think about it, a large portion of the XC2V could be handled by an innovative spaceframe that could make use of composite panels, or overlaid fabric to fill in the gaps-- if you think it is still necessary to fill in the gaps.

And if you think the box is the way to go, that is OK too! We just don't want you to be "stuck" in thinking that your vehicle had to be a "box".

Another part of "thinking outside of the box" is your inspiration. Try to avoid finding inspiration from the Rally Fighter, and from other existing military vehicles, and instead find it from other sources, such as this little guy: Darkling Beetle

A good starting point for inspiration would be too look at wildlife, especially wildlife that has to survive in parts of the world where living conditions for life are tough and varied. Nature is a huge and incredible source for inspiration, and about as far as you can get from the brute force engineering of military vehicles.

So to conclude as this blog post is starting to get really long:

Ask yourself "Why a Box?"

Think outside of that box

Think bigger than a 4x4, smaller, faster, lighter, more capable than a Humvee.

Think like a ninja: Speed is life, speed is survivability.

Think open.

Inspire yourself!

Pat yourself on the back if you read this whole post...

And now get back to your drawing board, and show us what you can do!

Nyko

XC2V Challenge: Not ONLY a 3D competition- WE love pencils, ink, markers, and finger paint too!

noreply@blogger.com (Nyko aka idesigncars) — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 03:26:00 +0000

Fellow designers, I have received a several inquiries and concerned potential designers regarding the use of 3D CAD software in the Experimental Crowd-derived Combat-support Vehicle challenge.

To be clear: We provided the 3D CAD Data (Downloadable models and embedded viewers in our website) to HELP you design your vehicles, but at the heart of it, this is a sketch competition, and not limited to 3D models.

This competition is about great ideas, and about revolutionizing what a military relevant vehicle is. It is about thinking outside of the box, pushing limits, and challenging the status quo. And to do this, we want you to use whatever medium you feel the most comfortable with, whatever medium will allow you to best express your ideas, even if that means finger paint!.

If you don't know how to use a 3D CAD program-- that is totally OK! We are sure you know how to use a pencil, pen, and paper-- you were 4 years old once in your life. If you feel more comfortable drawing, then draw, paint, scan, photograph, combine, and upload your design.

Conversely there are some who don't know how to draw well or who feel that your drawing skills are inadequate for this kind of competition. That is okay too. This is not a rendering competition either-- feel free to sketch your idea, and share it in the checkups section. Maybe a 3D modeler would want to work with you, or a talented render artist would want to collaborate with you on this.

We don't want you to feel limited by your skills on what you can do and how you participate in this design competition. Keep in mind that Local Motors and DARPA are looking for great ideas and great designs, not necessarily the most impressive renderings.

We encourage collaboration, and we encourage sharing your ideas in checkup to gain feedback and potentially partner with other community members.

So you may ask: Well, what is required to submit then: So that there is no confusion, here is what will get your submission approved:

• The 4 View Blueprint drawing with your vehicle design over it. You may compress this for submission and viewing purposes, so that it is smaller than 2000px wide.

• 3 views of your design: Front 3/4, Rear 3/4 and one of your choosing.

• Show how people fit in your vehicle (either with the provided oscar) or sketch how people would fit with the provided blueprint.

• Label all functions and design additions

• Please make sure to include your name and the date on all of your boards.

ON your boards make sure you meet the engineering requirements and have paid attention to your engineering guidelines.

As always, feel free to ask questions by contacting Nyko at Local Motors via his e-mail or on his profile wall.

So with that said, get out your pencils, pens, styli, and mice, and start sketching/ rendering/ fingerpainting/ or CADding if you insist....

Live Chat Saturday Feb 19th! Have your XC2V questions answered.

noreply@blogger.com (Nyko aka idesigncars) — Sat, 19 Feb 2011 01:07:00 +0000

On Saturday February 19th at 10:00h Mountain Standard Time (UTC-7) Local Motors will be hosting a live chat to answer all of your questions regarding the Experimental Crowd-derived Combat-support Vehicle. This Live chat will be hosted at www.tinychat.com/localmotors, and you don't need to be a member of tinychat to sign in, In addition, you DO NOT have to sign in with Facebook or Twitter-- you can just select a username in the lower right corner of the sign in box and that is all you need! Its free and easy, and this meeting will be worth your time if you have any questions for the Local Motors design team and DARPA.

I strongly encourage you to participate if you have any questions. In addition we will be hosting another live chat later next week if you have any additional questions.

Local Motors is dedicated to ensuring that no designer is left hanging with questions about this design challenge-- and we want to be sure you have everything you need to do your best work.

We hope to see you there!

Below are the times in time zones around the world:

Tokyo: 2:00h (yea, that is early)
L.A.: 9:00h
Detroit: 11:00h
New York: 12:00h (noon)
London: 17:00h
Paris: 18:00h
Bucharest: 19:00h
Mumbai: 22:30h

Live Chat for Designers! Get your XC2V Questions Answered.

noreply@blogger.com (Ari) — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 20:00:00 +0000

Join us!

Tomorrow we will host a live chat to answer your XC2V Competition questions such as:

How do I use the CAD files?
I tried to submit but it didn't work, what's wrong?
Should I include armor in my vehicle design? What about weapons?
How important is speed of ingress egress, or speed of the vehicle?

Nyko will be present as will a few people from DARPA. Thank you to our fantastic DARPA hosts for offering such constructive feedback so far.

Join us here: http://tinychat.com/localmotors

Note: It's easiest to sign in with your Facebook account. Or, make a tinychat account ahead of time.

Date: Tomorrow! Saturday, February 19th
Time: 10:00:00 Phoenix Time (MST, UTC-7)

Saturday, February 19th

Tokyo: 2am
Phoenix: 10am
Washington, DC: 12pm
Paris: 6pm
Bucharest: 7pm
Mumbai: 10:30pm

Intersection Magazine's 10th Anniversary Design Competition: The Winners!

noreply@blogger.com (Nyko aka idesigncars) — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 06:38:00 +0000

The Intersection Magazine's 10th Anniversary Design Competition turned out to be one of the most interesting competitions Local Motors has had to this date. The design brief was challenging, and clearly showed a need for a vehicle that does not exist. It was so challenging that when the LM design team had a hard time figuring out what a resort runabout was! It challenged Local Motors, it challenged Intersection Magazine, and it challenged you.

And you, the community rose to the challenge, submitting nearly 100 high quality entries. A larger percentage of submissions came from new members, or members who had not participated in Local Motors competitions for quite a while.

The quality of your work truly stunned the Local Motors design team. The sheer number of checkups and entries that came pouring in during the final days of the competition was almost overwhelming, but hugely rewarding when we saw the work. Before I talk about the winners, I think that everyone of you who submitted an entry to this competition should give yourself a pat on the back, and congratulate yourself.

Never forget that getting your entry in and meeting the requirements is a significant undertaking in and of itself.

It seemed that the Local Motors community came together during this competitoin and really proved what a community can do for one another when allowed to collaborate in an open environment. The sheer number of checkups, and feedback yielded designs that started out in a seemingly questionable state and quickly became community favorites.

Such is the case the competition winner Nikhil with his entry Dune. Early on in the competition he submitted a few sketches trying to define a direction to take his design. Thanks to that feedback, his second checkup was much stronger, and the feedback he received from that helped him create a winning entry!
Nikhil has come a long ways in the last 2.5 years since he participated in his first Local Motors design competition-- Manhattan Motors. His entry, Dune, features a very organic and fresh design that would look great roaming resorts around the tropics.

Following close behind Nikhil in second place was Marc Senger's (a.k.a. Sixten's) Reservoir. Marc knew he was onto something when he posted the first sketches of this idea and the community reacted extremely positively almost immediately. It caused Marc to seemingly abandon a previous idea to focus on making the Reservoir the best entry he could-- and he did. In stark contrast to the Dune's flowing organic design, the Reservoir is about as close to pure industrial design as you can get, but with a twist-- the Reservoir has a great personality, and is extremely well thought out. This would definitely be a memorable vehicle to drive and ride in on vacation-- I could easily imagine photos of people on their vacations next to these popping on the net in the next few years.

In third place is the most sporty entry-- appropriately named the Chillsta! This vehicle is all about having fun! Designer Naman Mathur made sure that nothing was spared in his design when it came to fun, and what makes riding in the Chillsta different from virtually every other car out there. HIs hammock-like flexible interior, customizable roof panels, surfboard mount all make for the perfect vacation resort runabout for places like Ibiza Spain or the south of France.

To the top three winners, Nikhill, Marc, and Naman, congratulations! Job well done!

And to the rest of the Intersection Magazine's 10th Anniversary Design Competition participants, congratulations as well! This was a tough competition!

Lastly, to any and all of the new community members who I have not yet met or commented on your walls, Welcome to Local Motors! I hope you will be back for more competitions! Don't be afraid to say hey on my wall, and always feel free to ask any questions you may have!

Rally Fighter Earns $100,000 for Local Charity

noreply@blogger.com (Ari) — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 00:44:00 +0000

Wahoo!

Our Rally Fighter brought in $100,000 for local Cox Charities in Arizona. You all should be proud - the vehicle we made together is going to do a lot of good.

Click the video below to see it auctioned at Barrett Jackson!

Intersection Magazine Design Competition: Don't Panic yet.

noreply@blogger.com (Nyko aka idesigncars) — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 20:17:00 +0000

To the wonderful community I get to interact with on a daily basis, I wanted to take a second and let you know that we are very busy here at Local Motors approving entries for the Intersection Magazine 10th Anniversary Design competition.

• First, I wanted to say that if you don't see your entry up on our website, don't Panic.
• Second if you accidentally placed your entry in a checkup, that is OK, you can still submit it.
• And third, if you have received and e-mail from me advising you about missing some required items, you still have time to re-submit your updated design board. There is no need to panic.
Take a breath, and relax.

This competition was unique in that while there were definitely a lot of checkups, the competition entries piled up at the last minute, and I am responsible for approving each and every entry that comes in. It is a lot of work to make sure each entry meets the requirements and guidelines, and when they do, it is a true pleasure to approve the entries.

However when an entry does not meet the requirements, I take the time to write personalized e-mails to each of you to let you know what is missing and what to do to improve your design boards. I take a lot of pleasure in this as well because I know that each of you put time and effort into creating your designs, and the last thing I want is for you to feel like you failed, and on top of that for you to get a standardized robot e-mail that is not clear about what needs to be fixed. You put in time to create a beautiful entry, I put in time to help you make it past the finish line. It's only fair.

True Story: Before I worked at Local Motors, my entry for Hawaii motors was declined three times! It happens, and I know what it feels like. So I take the time to do my best to write clear explanations of what needs to be done to have your design approved.

Many of you live abroad, and so there is a significant time difference.

Local Motors and myself are now located in Phoenix Arizona, which is on Mountain Standard time right now. That means that we are 2 hours behind East Coast time in the U.S. 8 hours difference from Paris France, 1 hour ahead of California.

While we still put competition deadlines at midnight Eastern Standard time, we do this because our servers are still on East Coast time. However, the 2 hour difference between the East Coast and Phoenix is significant, and may explain why some of you thought that your designs were not accepted. When it is 9 am in the east, it is only 7 am my time, and I am just sitting down for my breakfast.

Prior to that I was asleep, so if you were submitting from Paris for example, right when I am going to bed at midnight or 1 am, it is already 9 or 10 in the morning for you. So sometimes, because of this time difference, it can take up to 8 hours to approve entries or checkups.

I hope this helps explain some of the delays as to why some entries may have taken longer than others to be approved.

I wanted to thank you for your patience, but also let you know that I am working very hard to make sure your hard work is able to be seen by the whole world! This competition represents some of the best work we've seen, and also includes many new members to the Local Motors Community! To those new members, Welcome!

As we move forward, Local Motors, the design team and the web team are working to improve the submission process and the overall experience you will have on the Local Motors website. If you have any suggestions feel free to let us know, we always love feedback.

So with that said, thank you for making this such a great and successful competition, and thank you for creating such nice work. I wish all of you the best of luck during the voting session.

Great work!

Nyko