Prizes

Criteria for a good prize

Peter Diamandis discusses How to Design an X PRIZE.

sea-bound -- stays out at sea indefinitely (no or rare docking)
longevity -- 100+ year lifespan
semi-stationary -- stays within roughly the same region of the sea
spacious -- lots of space per passenger, relative to boats
wave-resistant -- little wave motion under normal conditions; can survive rogue waves
higher passenger duty cycle -- most passengers expect to live on seasteads fulltime
multi-purpose -- designed to house all of the same businesses as exist on land (dentist office, grocery stores, etc.)
modular -- can combine with each other to form larger structures

Given those design goals, some of the criteria we might consider for a prize:

Cost - Can you build the seastead under $X dollars
Station keeping -- Can the seastead inside a circle of x-radius for y period of time?
Ease of construction -- Can a single person with a pickup struck and readily available tools build it?
Comfort -- Does the seastead bob no more than X when waves are height Y?
Safety -- Can the seastead tolerate waves of height X without excessive damage?
Modularity -- Can the seastead be easily combined with other seasteads to form a larger structure? Does it tile?
Spaciousness -- Does the seastead provide at least X sq feet of living space?

Here's one set of criteria we might set for a prize:

Must cost no more than $50,000.00 to build.
Must not require any tools that cannot be bought at Home Depot, nor require more than a pickup truck to transport.
Must provide at least 6000 square feet of living space, consisting of at least three tileable modules that are connected to each other for the duration of the contest (tileable means that you could expand the structure in any direction by adding more modules)
Each module must be of equal size (+-5%), and capable of long term flotation on its own.
Each module must have positive buoyancy and be capable of floating even if fully flooded.
Must not move outside a 1 mile radius during the year at sea. Station keeping must not require active human intervention.
You must find someone __who is not the builder/designer__ to live aboard full-time for at least one year.
After a year at sea, must sell at auction on Ebay for at least $50,000 to someone unrelated to you.
Must be located at least 24 miles from shore during the year long stay.
Must make all it's own water
Must be capable of moving under its own power at least 5 mph for 100 miles without refueling

This would require a big prize, obviously. We could also offer smaller prizes for models that meet the criteria at a smaller scale.

Perhaps we should also think about explicitly what are _not_design criteria:

size - no max on size
weight - doesn't matter how much it weighs (although individual parts must be transportable by pickup)
speed - does have to move more than 5 mph
build-speed - doesn't matter how long it takes to build
does not have to be energy or food self-sufficient; food and fuel re-supplies are allowed. (Although perhaps we should make this a criteria for the prize, even though seasteads would not need to be self-sufficient).