Santa-pede Contest Winners

We received several fantastic entries. We laughed, we cried, we stared at our monitors in confusion, it was fantastic. Now we’re here to announce the winners of the Santa-Pede contest.

If you recall, the rules were pretty simple. Aquire a dancing santa (or other holiday dancing annoying toy thingy in the same fashion), tear it apart, build something that walks out of the pieces. We were aware that most of these have a very similar setup with one or two servos and a bit of plastic. That way everyone has a similar starting point.  We were amazed at what was done with so little.

Keep reading to find out who one each of the three categories: Most over-done,  best walker with no extra parts, and best presentation.

Winner of Best walker, only using the parts available was [Joshua Jackson].
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJWKxHpJ6i8&w=470]
He didn’t add any additional parts and managed to get a nice gait out of it. Great job. [Joshua] will be receiving a Minty Boost and a Hackaday T-shirt.

Winner of Best Presentation, with his Franken-santa was [Jonathan Thompson].

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0FQl_ufDUs]
His writeup was detailed and well photographed and he took the time to decorate his santa to stand out in a crowd. He’ll be receiving a Drawdio and a Hackaday t-shirt.

Winner of Most Over-done, with his amazing show of effort and tenacity was [Adam Outler] and his raging santa.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J77CKDWHwD0&w=470]

[Adam] went all out on this one. Starting with a quick walker that actually did pretty well and then going on to add a microcontroller with a nice web interface, allowing control from his android phone. His santa has not only the ability to walk, but also a “rampage mode” where he rages around firing his rocket launcher and can’t be stopped till you cut the power. Great job [Adam], you absolutely kicked this competition’s ass.
[Adam] will be receiving The Brain Machine, as well as a Hackday Shirt and an LED Shirt with glowing bulb.

There were other entrants, and we loved them all even if they did fail, so we’re sending them all hackaday stickers. Here are some for you to enjoy:

[Mike] who didn’t manage to get it to walk, but had fun trying.
[Jon] Who ended up with a pretty interesting design.
[budgethack] who’s entry was close in tie for best walker. His had several of us cracking up.
[Bluewraith] didn’t get very far either, but at least he tried!
[Osgeld]’s hilarious build had us all rolling on the floor and would have been a contender, but we hired him as a writer and he was immediately disqualified and beaten with a cat o’ nine tails.

15 thoughts on “Santa-pede Contest Winners

  1. Congrats winners! I hope the “Brain Machine” doesn’t send [Adam] into rampage mode.

    I guess congrats are in order for you too [Osgeld]. I’ve definitely noticed you make some quality comments. I hope you have thick skin or good grammar, though. Use “there” instead of “their,” and people seem to freak out around here.

  2. Wow! Such great entries. Maybe I can use the brain machine to meditate my kid when I’m trying to hack things.

    Who won the box set?
    http://hackaday.com/2010/10/29/bbb-1-the-santa-pede-challenge/
    “We will also be choosing one out of the above three to win a box set of the first year of Make Magazine courtesy of the makershed.com . This decision will be based on a whim mostly, but will probably go to the person who does the best in more than one category.”

  3. “Use “there” instead of “their,” and people seem to freak out around here.”

    While this is true, and I haven’t personally called anyone out on this, I can understand the frustration. Spelling words incorrectly is an abrupt halt for those of us who read very quickly. It is likely not taken lightly because this is something that 9 year old children are taught. Therefore, it would be expected that anyone who is intelligent enough to be able to safely hack anything should have a simple comprehension of 9 year old spelling and grammar. Just sayin’… :)

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