How are the finalists chosen for the online challenges? Is it purely based on voting or do the judges also look at each entry before choosing the finalists?
It’s slightly different for each of the seven challenges, but the all follow a format that is in the challenge details. For example, this is the statement from the 2011 Autodesk Inventor 2011 Digital Prototyping Challenge":
[INDENT]The community voting will determine four of the six finalists with two additional submissions chosen by Autodesk and the RECF. The six finalist submissions will then be scored with a weighted system including the community voting scores and scores given by selected professionals. This combined score will determine the Autodesk Inventor 2011 Digital Prototyping Challenge winners.[/INDENT]