Hackaday Design Challenge – Yes, A Contest!


So, you guys want to show off your skills? We’re giving you the chance. [If you don’t like it, blame Limor – she came up with the original idea]

The Challenge:
Design our next give-away: a business card sized PC Board. We’re not telling you what to make the circuit do, just make it something handy for hacking. Me, I think a PIC programmer/proto board would be handy.

The board must have:

  • The Hackaday logo
  • business card dimensions (90mm x 55mm)
  • reasonably easy to construct
  • A useful circuit (programmer, interface, whatever.)
  • Assembly instructions
  • Parts list

Through hole components are a good idea (Of course, if you can do it with SMD cheaper, and keep it easy to build… Surprise us) Maybe we could surface mount the CPU before we give them away, or we might put together parts kits, but it depends on the winning design(s).

You can put whatever circuit you like on it. PIC
programmer, JTAG interface, flux capacitor… but it has to work!

We want to have a board house make these up for us, so we’ll need the design in a format we can work with. We suggest EAGLE. It’s free and runs on just about everything. (But it limits you to two layers – which should be plenty)


Some hints to help you get the winning design:
Bonus for extra functionality
Clever incorporation of our logo
Completeness – include solder mask, drill info, everything we need to make the board.

The Prizes:
Fabienne is putting up her black 2gb iPod nano engraved with “hackaday.com” “one fresh hack each day” –
It’s been used a bit, and opened up a few times so it’s got some scratches, but hasn’t been modded… yet.

We’ll send you some of the boards of course. I’ve got more good stuff in the works, and I’ll announce more prizes as we get them confirmed.

Submissions: When you’ve got your design ready, Put it online and let us know about it on the tip line. (Or send in a tip and we’ll tell you where to email it if you don’t have anywhere to host it.)

The Deadline: December 25th. Plenty of time to get your design cranked out. Everyone needs a winter break, but We’ll try to have a winner chosen within a week or two of the deadline.

76 thoughts on “Hackaday Design Challenge – Yes, A Contest!

  1. Robotguy,
    I’m definately using the net tool. It just seems to miss connecting about 90% of the time. As you said, when it misses it doesn’t stop drawing the net, so it’s easy enough to tell when the second end missed. It also misses the first end when I start drawing the next about 90% of the time though and I have no way to tell it did.

    I’ve started working at maximum zoom to make sure I’m clicking where it wants and it still misses most of the time.

  2. Jason,

    I had the same problem for ages. My advise would be to click View->Grid, change Size to 0.05 and Display ‘On’

    When you use the net tool, it will end if you click a component, if you miss it continues for another section, so you should be able to tell if it connects.

    Definately try the grid size change as your first priority

  3. hi, i have my design ready, and on friday i placed it in the tipline,and i have some questions.

    How can i get confirmation that its been read? cos im not receiving any email, considering its early for a desing.

    Do i have to post some tests of the desing? cos i have simulations but if phisical tests are needed i would have to schedule the equipment, apart from actually doing the design physically! and it takes time, i need to know!

    Thanks
    Pabloec from colobia

  4. alex

    I used a program called DXF to Eagle script available off the eagle sight:
    ftp://ftp.cadsoft.de/eagle/userfiles/misc/d2e_110.exe

    It says you can only use it 3 times but after you install it look in your c drive for a file called d2ec. open it in an editor and you should see a number probably ‘3’. change that number to whatever you want and then you can convert however many times you want. I used the program cadstd to design the logo and exported to DXF format then converted to eagle script then ran the script. but here is for everyone a top layer footprint of the hack-a-day logo. enjoy :)
    http://homepage.usask.ca/~avl094/hack.lbr

  5. Anyone care to make a Universal Garage Door Opener? Or how about a magnetic strip (like from a king soopers card) reader? Or faker? Or even a signal disruptor for the Wii? Wifi detector? Oooh! Wii Detector!? Cell phone signal jammer? RFID reader with lcd display? Mini TV tuner? Solar powered battery charger? If you really want a challenge, then a self contained wep decrypter. Something rediculously easy? Light sensor with built in alarm. Alternately, an Infrared sensor with LED light. Use Bawls Light schematic from earlier hackaday post. Best of Luck everyone!!!

  6. I’ve got a capacitive proximity sensor in the works for the contest, the logo being built into the sensor element etched into the board. Still need to calculate a few values for the design.

  7. First post on hack a day,
    Ive been working on a very cool design however its going to have to be all SMD.

    Ive used eagle very little in the past, However im having very great sucess at getting my design onto the board.
    I have two design guideline questions.

    A)Is it acceptable to cut square holes it the board to mount components more flush, Keeping thikness down.
    B) If a small peice of additional board is needed for the device to function will that be okay?.

    Off to install a DuoX2

  8. Jason:

    to do a connection in eagle you have to do this:
    Click on the first pin what you want to connect, and then double-click the second pin you want to connect. If you do a single click in the second pin the connection will exists in the schematic, but no in the pcb.

    Sorry for my english, but i’m only a 16 year old boy from agentina :P

    PD: the project have to be something for the pc or i have read wrong?

  9. What about an RFID version of Mafia, everyone has a unique code and only one person can kill them. It has two displays and two buttons, one display is your number one display is the number of the person you have to kill. One button lights up the displays, the other button sends out a kill signal. If the wrong tag is read you die or if multiple tags are read you die….kinda hard to explain and I have no idea how to actually do it but its worth throwing out there.

  10. congrats to those who will work under time and design constraints. to the rest with their ” why can’t you …..
    suck it up. if you can’t meet the deadline due to knowledge, skills, ideas. don’t try. read the comments of those trying and learn. i am not submitting because i can’t meet the deadline so i’ll just enjoy watching others progress.

  11. I looked into the mafia game based on RFID, I think i could figure out how to build the circuit for it but with the components required it would cost almost 60 dollars per unit…a bit expensive for a silly game. Those who are interested email me at tad221 at psu dot edu.

  12. So, I waited until the last minute ~ 12/25 11:30pm EST to submit my entry, I kept putting off writing my abstract, I finally got my wife to proof read it then I put everything in to a zip file and upload it to my website finally did the submission.
    Now I’ve been checking out the access.log to see if anyone has got it, but no one has. I wonder if it was too late or if there is a back log and someone will get to see the thing before the winner is decide?

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