Bounty on Bus Pirate features, get a free v2 PCB

posted Mar 25th 2009 12:01pm by Ian Lesnet
filed under: contests, hardware, news, tool hacks

bpv2

We’re putting a bounty on two high-priority Bus Pirate features. You can get a free PCB for the upcoming Bus Pirate V2 by writing a bit of code. Hack a Day has a varied and talented group of readers, and we know someone out there has the experience to make these changes with minimal difficulty.

  • The latest code integrates the PIC24F bootloader for easy updates without a programmer. We’d like to add a protocol snooper, but that requires interrupts. With the bootloader, however, interrupts are relocated and we’ve yet to fully grasp how that works. We’ll send a PCB and PIC 24F to the first person who modifies the code to demonstrate UART, SPI, or change notification interrupts with the boot loader. Microchip’s 24F bootloader app note is available here. Complete.
  • The current frequency measurement feature is a hack that uses a counter and a timer. Be the first to implement the input capture peripheral instead, and get a free PCB. See the function bpFreq(void) in base.c. Complete.

The latest Bus Pirate code and compiled firmware can be checked-out from Google Code SVN. Submit your code via the comments below or buspirate@hackaday.com.

UPDATE: Both issues were resolved. Thanks for your suggestions.

Autofocus assist light

posted Jan 26th 2009 12:06pm by Caleb Kraft
filed under: contests, digital cameras hacks

afassist

[Aki]’s Nikon D2H did not come with an autofocus assist light.  His other cameras have them, and he likes the feature, so he decided to hack one into his D2H. He wired into the AF system, so that his LED gets voltage when the shutter release is pressed half way. The circuit needs refinement though, he found that the light was staying on during shutter release and affecting his light metering. You can see the hack in action after the break.
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Propeller halloween contest winners

posted Nov 3rd 2008 7:29am by Caleb Kraft
filed under: contests, home hacks, news

Meet Skelly, the propeller powered singing skeleton, winning entry to the Unofficial Propeller Halloween Contest. Sick of the massive amounts of Arduino projects floating around the web, [Oldbitcollector] offered a halloween challenge.  Make something spooky using a propeller and other parallax stuff, win a prize. Skelly, made by [Chuck Rice] was the star of the show, so [Chuck] will be getting some USB development boards in the mail.

Escape From Berkeley

posted Oct 1st 2008 1:30pm by Kimberly Lau
filed under: contests, news

Escape From Berkeley (By Any Non-Petroleum Means Necessary) is an alternative-fueled road rally that starts October 10th and ends October 13th. The rally begins in Berkeley, California, and finishes in Las Vegas, Nevada at the Sahara. Contestants are required to use any fuel other than petroleum, and using only those fuels scavenged “for free” along the way. Fuel cannot be purchased. Judges will present awards for both artistic and technical achievements. If you want to get in on the action, there are a number of ways to participate, from registering your vehicle to volunteering for the event or even sponsoring the route “by the mile” or by landmark.

[via Laughing Squid]

Announcing the Ruckingenur Challenge

posted Oct 1st 2008 12:23pm by Caleb Kraft
filed under: contests, news

Back in August, we posted a fantastic reverse engineering game called Ruckingenur II created by [Zach Barth]. Apparently he got an overwhelmingly positive responce as well as many requests for a level editor. [Zach] decided to open this up as a contest, giving wonderful prizes and fame to the winner. Go read the rules and send him some entries. We can’t wait to see what you come up with.

[thanks Zach]




Hack a Day T-Shirt Contest winner

posted Sep 19th 2008 8:00pm by Eliot Phillips
filed under: contests, news

Congratulations to [John Keppel] for his winning t-shirt design. He wins a Dash Express, an in-car navigation device with both cellular and WiFi data support. It’s running Linux on top of the Openmoko FreeRunner’s hardware platform; yes, [John], we do expect you to hack it. We’ll let all of you know when we plan on putting the shirt into production. Thank you to everyone that entered!

Hack a Day T-Shirt Design Contest ends today

posted Sep 15th 2008 1:30am by Eliot Phillips
filed under: contests, news

The final day for entries in our Hack a Day T-Shirt Design Contest is today. Get your entries in by midnight Pacific time and you could win a Dash Express (or non-US prize).

Hack a Day Fail Contest Winner

posted Sep 12th 2008 6:06pm by Eliot Phillips
filed under: contests, news

We had a lot of entries for our Fail contest; there can only be one winner though. We liked [Gordon LaPlante]’s entry pictured above most of all. It’s big, it’s broken, and it’s black and white; that certainly sounds like us. [Gordon] wins $100 worth of No Starch Press merchandise.

There were plenty of other honorable entries. You can view them in the Hack a Day Flickr photo pool. We saw a couple themes emerge during the contest and have highlighted some of them after the break. Read the rest of this entry »




Fail contest ends tonight

posted Sep 5th 2008 2:29pm by Eliot Phillips
filed under: contests, news

The Hack a Day Fail Whale Contest ends at midnight. It’s an easy way to win $100 in No Starch Press merch. Check out some of the entries in the Hack a Day Flickr pool. You can get logos and fonts from the Hack a Day t-shirt contest, which is also still running.

[photo: Xeracy]

Hack a Day Fail Whale Contest

posted Sep 4th 2008 3:41pm by Eliot Phillips
filed under: contests, daily, news

We’re back! There may be a bit of oddness for the next few days. Our Fail Whale contest is still running and we’ve received over 100 entries so far. Here’s how you can participate:

While we’re adding more hamsters to our server power plant we thought we’d hold a little art contest. Whenever Twitter goes down, they post the iconic Fail Whale. The Fail Whale has become so popular that it has spawned a dedicated blog and many many art projects: embroidery, tattoos, and laser cut models.

We want to see what you think Hack a Day failure looks like. Create an illustration, photo, sculpture, anything that you think embodies Hack a Day failing. Send your entries to hackaday.fail@gmail.com and add them to the Hack a Day photo pool. The prize is $100 for you to spend in the No Starch Press store. Entries are due 00:00PDT Saturday September 6th 2008.

[image: Bjonnh]

Hack a Day t-shirt design contest update

posted Aug 25th 2008 1:00am by Eliot Phillips
filed under: contests


We announced the Hack a Day t-shirt design contest last week and entries have been rolling in. Check out the updated contest post for logo images and the font. Here are couple of the entries we’ve received:

Read the rest of this entry »

The Underhanded Hardware Challenge

posted Aug 21st 2008 9:00pm by Eliot Phillips
filed under: contests, security hacks

The Polytechnic Institute of NYU is hosting an interesting embedded systems contest. They’ve constructed a solid state cryptographic device that uses a 128-bit private key. Contestants will be tasked with designing and implementing several trojans into the system that will undermine the security. The system is built on a Digilent BASYS Spartan-3 FPGA board. The trojans could do a wide variety of things: transmitting unencrypted, storing and transmitting previously entered plain text, or just shutting down the system entirely. The modified devices still need to pass the factory testing procedure though, which will measure power consumption, code size, and function. After a qualification round, participants will be given the necessary hardware to compete.

[via NYC Resistor (Happy Birthday!)]

io9’s Build a Lifeform contest

posted Aug 19th 2008 2:30pm by Kimberly Lau
filed under: contests, misc hacks


There’s still time to enter io9’s Build a Lifeform contest. Synthetic biologists, get cracking on the design of that synthetic lifeform or BioBricks lifeform! The rules are pretty straightforward; you need to propose a lifeform design that would be scientifically viable. The BioBricks lifeform part of the contest requires that your design needs to not only be scientifically viable, you have to explain how you would create it in a lab, and you get extra points if you already have an organism. The deadline is August 25, 2008. You could win the opportunity to attend an all-expenses-paid trip to the Synthetic Biology Conference in Hong Kong or $1000 and a chance to get your creature drawn by a cool comic book artist.

Hack a Day T-Shirt design contest

posted Aug 18th 2008 6:30pm by Eliot Phillips
filed under: contests, news

We need a new t-shirt. The current design is entering its third year. Help us out by designing a new shirt to give away at conferences. Dash has donated a Dash Express for first prize.

Some ground rules:

  • You must incorporate the skull and wrenches logo in your design. You’ll find a larger version below.
  • You can enter as many designs as you like to hackaday.shirt@gmail.com (JPG, GIF, or PNG mockups only please)
  • The design can’t violate any copyright laws or trademarks.
  • The design should be one color and the shirt doesn’t have to be black.
  • By submitting your design you give us non-exclusive rights to use the image in the design of a Hack a Day t-shirt as well as for other Hack A Day promotional materials.
  • We reserve the right to choose no design at all if we don’t like any of the submissions.
  • The contest ends September 15th.

Read the rest of this entry »

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