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!
posted Sep 15th 2008 1:30am by
Eliot Phillips
filed under:
contests,
news
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 »
posted Sep 5th 2008 2:29pm by
Eliot Phillips
filed under:
contests,
news
posted Sep 4th 2008 3:41pm by
Eliot Phillips
filed under:
classic hacks,
contests,
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]
posted Aug 25th 2008 1:00am by
Eliot Phillips
filed under:
contests
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!)]
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.
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 »
posted Jul 29th 2008 5:00pm by
Eliot Phillips
filed under:
contests,
news

The NYC Soldering Championships are happening tonight at Ignite in M1-5. It looks like there might still be some slots open if you want to compete. You can bring your own iron, it’s all through-hole, but you can’t use helping hands. Good luck, and we can’t wait to see how this inaugural event turns out!
[photo: Nick Bilton]