Challenge Details per Round

[VuD]

Qualifing Round (February 14 - March 6)

• You think you have what it takes to get to the championship? Well the qualifying round is the time for you to show that off. Just like the first round in a game of HORSE, the qualifying round will allow you to show off your strengths. Are you awesome with DAQ programming? Can you control an Instrument with your eyes closed? Can you make LabVIEW operate like the 6th man? Well now is the time to show off your skills. The qualifying round is all about creating and submitting code that will help other LabVIEW users learn and grow. So step up to the line and show the community the best way to do something in LabVIEW.
• Customers can submit any code that meets thecriteria of:
  • It doesn’t already exist on the community verbatium (can reuse pieces of code but must be new functionality or implemenation)
  • Something that would be beneficial for a new to intermediate LabVIEW user to look at, gain knowledge from, and reuse in their own project.
  • Well documented code (other people must be able to easily read and understand what your code is doing and why)
  • Community page has explanation, instructions for using the code, and an image of your main block diagram.
  • Could be any software or hardware that NI produces (no third party software or hardware for this round)
  • Follows LabVIEW Style Guidelines
  • Any 3^rd party library or resources used in the code must be open source and documented.
  • Add extension at the end of the VI name with what version it was coded in (e.g. Example_LV2010.vi)
  • One submission per document entry and it can be reiterated upon until the submission time closes
• Community votes on top submissions and then the top 16 will move on
• Submit your code today!

Sweet Sixteen-Bit

Task 1 – Getting Data From Website using LabVIEW

• Programmatically harvest data from a public website using LabVIEW and then display the information to a user in a way that showcases that data appropriately.
  • Use ONLY a public website that is appropriate forall ages with no ties to anything that could be offensive to anyone if brought up in conversations (politics, religion, etc.). Please use your best judgment or just do what you think your grandma would want you to do.
  • It doesn’t already exist on the community verbatim
  • You will be building on this code for each new round you move on to so make sure you modularize your code so you can reuse it later.
  • Something that would be beneficial for a new to intermediate NI user to look at, gain knowledge from, and reuse in their own project.
  • Well documented code. Someone should be able to read what every VI and structure does so they can know what you did and why you chose that method.
  • Community page has explanation, instructions for use, and an image of your main block diagram
  • Must use LabVIEW but can make calls into 3^rdparty library or resources as long as they are open source and you document them so users know what they are doing.
  • Add extension at the end of the VI name withwhat version it was coded in (e.g. Example_LV2010.vi)
• You will be submitting each remaining rounds code onto this document so we can see your complete implementation at the end. Each task will build off of one another so make sure and architect your code with this in mind.
• The community will vote in a poll on March 14th for their favorites and then the top 8 will move on

Elite Eight-Bit

Task 2 – Data Communication between VIs using LabVIEW

• Transfer the data you harvested in Task 1 and transfer it to another VI using the most appropriate and efficient LV Functionality
  • Your Task 2 submission should build on the last round and be resubmitted as a new attachment on your community page. This means that there should be one VI on your document that gets and displays data (labeled Task 1) and another one (labeled Task 2) that uses that same functionality and passes that data to another VI. The Task 1 VI does NOT have to be used explicitly in the Task 2 VI (see next bullet for more info).
  • You MAY look through other last round submissionand rearchitect your code to incorporate any new best practices learned. If you do rearchitect your code then please add a comment acknowledging where you got the idea from. You can change the architecture functionality, website used, or data harvested to be able to pass the data to another VI.
  • You can make the decision whether you want to pass this information to another VI on the same computer or another computer. Just state somewhere on your document.
  • Just append to your last document and add a new section for Task 2. You can leave the Title the same or change it to be more relevant. You do not need to have the user group or name information again.
  • Something that would be beneficial for a new to intermediate NI user to look at and gain knowledge from.
  • Very well documented code. Since this challenge is community voted on and this task is about choosing data communication techniques, documentation can help you explain your reasons of choosing a certain method and help users decide which is the best. You can use existing NI produced documentation to help form your opinions but please try not to plagarize directly from other challengers. There will be similar submissions with similar arguements but blatant plagarisim will be frowned upon. If you disagree with someone's arguements on why they choose one data communication technique over another then please do so professionally by having a discussion in the comments. Utilize your vote for the better submission to show which you like best instead of  disputing in an unprofessional manner.
  • Community page has explanation of code AND an explanation behind your decision on your data communication technique and why you think it is the best is this use case (e.g. pros and cons of using that particular communication technique), instructions for use, and an image of your main block diagram
  • Add extension at the end of the VI name withwhat version it was coded in (e.g. Example_LV2010.vi)
• Community votes of top submissions in each head-to-head match and then the top 4 will move on
• If there are any questions about the task itself, please post in the Questions? discussion so we can address them with the whole group.

Final Four-Bit

Task 3 – Data Processing and Display in another Software Package

• Now that you have received data from a website and transferred that data to a new VI, programmatically post-process that data in another software package (e.g. NI DIAdem, Microsoft Excel, MatLab) and display the post-processed to the user in that software.
  • Post-processing the data could include anything that you deem as a productive use of these other software packages. That could be but not at all limited to sending the data programmatically from LabVIEW into Microsoft Excel, manipulating the data, and then generating a report. The task is two fold: processing the data and displaying the data in another software package other than LabVIEW.
  • Your submission must build on the last round and be resubmitted as a new attachment on your community page
  • You MAY look through other last round submissionand rearchitect your code to incorporate any new best practices earned
  • Something that would be beneficial for a new to intermediate NI user to look at, gain knowledge from, and reuse in their ownproject
  • Well documented code
  • Community page has explanation, instructions for use, and an image of your main block diagram
  • Must use LabVIEW but can make calls into 3^rd party library or resources as long as they are open source and you document them so users know what they are doing.
  • Add extension at the end of the VI name withwhat version it was coded in (e.g. Example_LV2010.vi)
• Community votes of top submissions in each head-to-head match and then the top 2 will move on
• If there are any questions about the task itself, please post in the Questions? discussion so we can address them with the whole group.

Block Diagram Championship

Task 4 – LabVIEW to the Cloud

• Now that the data has been transferred and processed in another software package. Take that information and save it in a cloud service. This is becoming a popular way for users to share data/results between collegues around the world and act as a backup source for the data itself.
  • Saving the information in a cloud service could be importing any reports or spreadsheets into a cloud service (e.g. Google Docs, Microsoft Office Web Apps, etc.), transferring the data directly into the cloud environment (e.g. move data from one cell in Microsoft Excel to one cell in Google Spreadsheets), using images of the processed data that are saved in the cloud, or many other things.
  • Your submission must build on the last round and be resubmitted as a new attachment on your community page.
  • You MAY look through other last round submissions and rearchitect your code to incorporate any new best practices learned.
  • Something that would be beneficial for a new to intermediate NI users to look at, gain knowledge from, and reuse in their own project.
  • Well documented code
  • Community page has explanation, instructions foruse, and an image of your main block diagram
  • Must use LabVIEW but can make calls into 3^rdparty library or APIs as long as they are open source and you document them in LabVIEW so users know what the APIs are doing. This is especially important in this round as these are newer APIs that don’t have a lot of documentation so help others learn from your example by telling them what you found out.
  • Add extension at the end of the VI name with what version it was coded in (e.g. Example_LV2010.vi)
• Community votes of top submission and then prizes will be awarded
• If there are any questions about the task , please post in the Questions? discussion so we can address them with the whole group.