I am pleased to announce the results of the February Digital Art contest. But before I do, let me note a few things:

1st, this contest got more entries than all our prior contests, so the increasing level of participation is really cool ... thanks to everyone who took part! 2nd, we are going to announce the subject of our next contest soon but don't have quite all the details ready yet - look for a post end of this week or early next. In either case, the deadline will be April 30. 3rd, from now on, if you want to submit a program as a contest entry, please post it in this "Contest Entries" sub-forum in the "Collaboration and Community Projects" forum - in other words, right where you are in reading this post. We want to make sure we know which programs are considered entries, and which aren't (not always clear from what people write about them in their post, as they upload them).

So, on to the results ... for the February contest, we considered the following entries ... (per last comment, if you did intend for your program to be considered as a contest entry, our apologies): Jamey - Trigflowers ... DaveG – Lorenzbutterfly ... Norman - SpecialDate4 ... Phrogger – Textmaxscreensize ... Dragon Rider – RainDrop ... TomDad - MysticOrb ... and (last but not least) Larry - Funwith3D. As usual, it was a lot of fun to take a look at the programs and try them out. A few did not seem to work quite as intended and we noticed some interesting (ahem) variances over what might constitute a "digital art" program - e.g., not like a kaleidoscope, the type of example mentioned in the contest rules. Or maybe the person uploading the program wasn't intending to enter the contest anyway (that will be clearer next month, hopefully). All that said, here are the results:

Winner (in a very close vote):  Dragon Rider, with RainDrop ... judges' notes: Phrogram is a Seattle-based company so this one struck close to home ... very imaginative and nicely done!
Runner-up (another set of judges might have scored this differently): DaveG with Lorenzbutterfly ... Judges' notes: very visual and fun to stare at - even without mind-altering substances :)!
Special Award of Merit: TomDad with MysticOrb ... Judges' notes: not clear it was meant as "digital art" but fun to play (when one judge asked "should this program win?" MysticOrb answered "looks like yes" ... it seems to have a mind of its own! Anyway, had the contest been for the program that generated the most laughs, MysticOrb would have won. In fact, Walt and I used MysticOrb to get people to come over to our booth at NCEE in Spokane a few weeks ago, and quite a few people did laugh!

So, congratulations on your great programs, and thanks again to everyone for participating!

But wait ... there's more ... hey Dragon Rider, you may ask, so what did I win? Good question! Well, we ran out of the shirts Walt was giving out so we plan to order some T-shirts. It'll take a few weeks. To see what they will look like, click here.  Or, Dragon Rider, if you'd rather stay in a digital realm, we can instead give you a free copy of Phrogram Chat, our upcoming add-in library that will be ready by the time the next contest is over (end of next month). Phrogram Chat will make it possible to IM and exchange data over Google Talk as you play a Phrogram game over an IP network! So, let me know what you prefer and we'll mark you down for it.

Thanks for reading this far, everyone ... and stay tuned for our next contest!

DavidW