Okay, to be honest, I wasn't thinking of it as a speed building challenge, more as a Necessity-is-the-mother-of-invention challenge. The ten hours wouldn't be there just as a challenge against the clock, but more of a challenge of inovation, to see how one could try and come up with something and then make it a reality using nothing but what you've got on hand. That could be improvising something from a box of greeblies, spare MHS parts, scrap tube, found parts, whatever you've got handy, fridgesaber-style.
But, I was also thinking that specifically, the ten hour limit would also serve as a way to prevent overly "complex" build processes: if you've got 10 hours, can you really afford to waste three of them on a complex 3D print, or two on anodising, or setting up a mill/lathe for complex and fancy machining work? there would be an advantage to keeping it simple and effective.
See, personally, I find it's the design stage that always trips me up. I spend months iterating and reiterating. Every saber I've built has had at least five variants before it leaves the paper drawing board, then CAD gets in the way, and then it's six months later and I pretty much have to force myself to stop designing and actually get started on building *something*. That, or I'll outlive the heat death of the universe changing the design juuuust a little bit more here and there. having a strict "this is how long you can spend designing before you must build" limit would help, I figure.
Or I could be wrong and this is just a flawed idea. that's happened before. often. quite often.
My further thoughts on the idea are: all contestants would have to start with all the electronics of their choice (soundboard, speaker, LEDs/pixel blade, battery, etc) and a basic chassis to put them in; all unassembled and unsoldered. from there, it's a free for all. Also, the ten hours wouldn't have to be consecutive. wouldn't want anyone to get exhausted and injure themselves.