I agree that engineering and math aren't as "popular" on Steemit, but that could be for many reasons. Hopefully this could help with some of that.

I know what you mean by some people don't like bot votes. I personally feel they are best used to reward other people's content, and not one's own, though I've been known to use them... I like the idea of rewarding SteemPower, though.

The public vote idea, I know, would be incredibly easy to game, and create a sense of unfairness that is already so prevalent here. Going with human judges, I'd like to have a couple for each sub-contest, as I know the volume of content to sift through would take too much from someone's own Steemit time.

Thanks for all your input!