Announcing The Trinket Everyday Carry Contest

Now that we’ve recovered from our Munich party and the awarding of The Hackaday Prize, we’re ready to announce our latest contest. We’ve been having a lot of fun with our Trinket Pro boards, both the 10th anniversary edition and the new Hackaday.io branded models.  While we were soldering, compiling, and downloading, a contest idea took root. Trinket Pro really excels when used in small projects, the kind which would fit in a pocket. To that end we’re holding the Trinket Everyday Carry Contest, a showcase for small, pocketable projects which are useful everyday. ‘Useful everyday’ is a bit of a broad term, and we intended it that way. Tools are useful of course , but so are jewelry pieces. It’s all in the eye of the builder and users. We’re sure our readers will take this and run with it, as they have with our previous contests.

There are some great prizes in store for the entrants, including a brand new Rigol DS1054Z  oscilloscope! The top 50 entrants will get custom Trinket Everyday Carry Contest T-shirts. Check out the contest page for a full list. 

submit-project-to-trinket-edcWe know you all love to procrastinate with your entries, so we’re going to be offering a few perks to those who enter early and update often. Each week, we’ll throw all the entrants who have published at least one project log full of details into a drawing for a special prize from The Hackaday Store. To be considered you must officially submit your project which is accomplished through a drop-down list on the left side of your project page.

Remember, the contest isn’t just about winning a scope, a meter, or any of the other prizes. It’s about creating new Open Hardware designs that nearly anyone can build. So grab those soldering irons, load up those copies of the Arduino IDE, AVR-GCC, or WinAVR, and get hacking!

You can view the all of the contest entries in this list.

47 thoughts on “Announcing The Trinket Everyday Carry Contest

  1. If I was designing something to carry around in a pocket every day I’d skip the relatively bulky breakout board and go straight to the chip (on a custom board if necessary). I’m excited to see what people make anyway, as it seems like it should be pretty easy to modify a Trinket design to work with a comparable AVR chip. Great contest idea!

    1. If I may offer a suggestion, if Adafruit doesn’t have stock of the 3v Trinket Pro by mid December, could the contest be expanded to the Trinket as well? For pocket size applications, the lower voltage would greatly expand the power source options.

  2. I’m glad you guys are starting up a new contest, I have a few ideas that would be perfect for this.Plus I just bought a couple of the 10th anniversary Trinkets and was wondering how I would use them properly. I should have my concept and some proof of work by the end of the week. Any word on how the judging is gonna go this time?

    1. I think you could certainly prototype the concept, primarily the software, on an Arduino (Uno, micro, etc), but the rules are clear that this contest must use a Trinket Pro as the final product.

        1. The whole idea is to make a project that other people can replicate. It makes perfect sense that they’d require it to be a product they sell; can’t say I fault them for that.

          Seeing as how they’re $10, I also don’t find it unreasonable.

          1. Seems pretty lame to me, when SupplyFrame bought hackaday they said in no uncertain terms that they would not be engaging in this type of behavior. Seems like if they want to honor the promise they made us, they should open this up to any project running a compatible chip. If you make a promise you should follow though.

          2. Plus it helps even out the entries so the contest is a bit more fun. The “Prize” was cool, but the free form nature made it tough to compare projects. I feel like I can make a much more competitive entry given the design constraints.

          3. You don’t have to buy Hackaday’s pro trinket. You can just get Adafruit’s straight from the source. You then also have the option of getting a 3v version for better battery performance.

          4. @ChrisJ: It does seem appropriate for us to include “Homebrew” trinket pro boards since it is an Open Design item. I’ll make an update to the contest parameters to reflect this.

            As for your assumption that SupplyFrame is the driving force behind this contest (and the Trinket Pro requirement), you’re wrong. Adam and I came up with the idea for the contest because so many people bought the 10th Anniversary boards but we haven’t seen very many projects using them. This is a way to encourage people to show off what they’ve been working on.

          1. As I already said I will not participate. So what is your point? It is the comment section down here and that was a comment. You dont like my comment? Too bad I guess.

      1. Ok, thanks for all your answers. Unfortunately I have about 10 arduino nanos lying around but no trinket, both have ATmega328 though. Seems like I can’t participate, still great contest Idea though.

        1. >Seems like I can’t participate, still great contest Idea though.

          You can if you don’t mind getting your hands dirty. How attached are you to your nanos? ;)

          You’ve presumably already got most, if not all, the parts of a Trinket because you can salvage them from a nano. (I’ve not checked the BoM’s but the ATmega328 is the same on both, right?)

          It’s a two-layer open-sourced PCB. You could homebrew your own board based on the trinket pro design and enter that! Not sure I’d fancy soldering the ATmega328P, but I’m sure there are tutorials for PCB making, and component salvaging and soldering on HaD somewhere! You’re allowed to enter:

          >A board you have built and populated yourself based on the open source design found [on the AdaFruit website].

          1. Well, the idea is great, but I lack the skill of PCB manufacturing and soldering such little parts. I think, just spending 10$ is the proper way to go for me. We’ll see, maybe I find some time to order one and build something…

  3. If I do a cool project, would someone be willing to replicate it on a trinket as a sort of team entry? I can’t really justify the cost of getting a trinket, but I have some bare ATMega328’s and all the associated bits n bobs to make them go. Or maybe it would count if I built a replica trinket?

    1. At the time of writing, I saw this in the comments

      “@ChrisJ: It does seem appropriate for us to include “Homebrew” trinket pro boards since it is an Open Design item. I’ll make an update to the contest parameters to reflect this.” — Mike Szczys

      1. Thanks TacticalNinja, yeah that was posted after I commented – solves my problem :) I like how open to feedback the HAD team generally are. Even if their surnames are impossible to pronounce :P

      1. “Adam and I came up with the idea for the contest because so many people bought the 10th Anniversary boards but we haven’t seen very many projects using them. This is a way to encourage people to show off what they’ve been working on.”
        —Mike Szczys

        So I guess the normal Trinket was not sold so much that it need encouragement?

    1. I think you should be able to use any bootloader you like; for example, I could load any bootloader on the official Pro Trinket and still be eligible. The instructions state that it just needs to include enough guidance that a competent electrical hobbyist could assemble it. So if you use a custom bootloader, just be sure to put it up on Github or something similar and make sure it’s some kind of Open Source. As for the USB VIP/PID; can’t you use an unsigned/custom one? Adafruit won’t let you use theirs for projects that you are selling, so I would assume the same here. Also, I’m no official here, so don’t take my word for it, I was just replying with my interpretation of the rules

  4. Since I want to participate to this contest but need to buy some stuffs (plus the Trinket Pro now), it seems that this is the good place to ask… I just wanna know if someone knows a good store in Norway with a lots of electronics ? I moved recently from France to Norway and used to go on exp-tech.de but now that I’m on Norway, it can cost too much for me (delivery + VAT)…

    So this is a call to all Norwegian hackers : where do you buy your stuffs ?! (god damn, there’s no interrobang on these keyboards). The best would be an online store based in Norway so I could avoid having to deal with the Post Office for the VAT (I’m not an economist and I don’t understand anything to all that sh** plus I don’t speak Norwegian for now).

    Thanks in advance. Tusen takk !

    1. The only local and big retailer I know is Elfa elektronic (www.elfaelektronikk.no, you can switch the site to English via “bytt land” in the top/right corner). They used to have a shop in Oslo a few years ago, where you can pick-up your command and some basic stuff, but I cannot find the address anymore.
      I am just a really occasional hacker so the little I need often come from Honk-Kong or uk (found stuff via ebay, shipping generally lower than from US) like a lot of people in Europe.
      About toll in Norway: no importation tax to pay as long as you stay under the 200nok (before shipping)
      Over 200 nok: 25%VAT added to the product (AND the shipping) + a potential importation tax + “processing fee” (AFAIR the post have a “reasonable” fixed fee, but UPS or FEDEX used it with other “admin.fee” to rob you hard)
      Practically, to buy a stuff a bit over 200nok can cost almost the double after importation. I found about it the hard way :-(
      For stuff more expensive and impossible to find or overpriced in Norway, buying in US can still be the way to go (drivers for DIY audio for example, huge choice and lot lower price than what i found on some .de and .dk site) and then the cheapest is to use jetcarrier.com for the shipping: all included importation fee, can chose shipping via cargo or plane and they provide you a local address in US (practical for buying from seller who do not bother to offer international shipping)

      I heard about some people using some postal boxes and contacts in uk or sweden to “cheat” the toll but I do not know much detail or how legal is this.

      For the trinket in particular, no idea, the shipping seems to be a problem for everybody in Europe.

      A part ca, bienvenue en Norvège :-)

  5. Is anyone else having trouble with the trinket pro 3.3v and basic serial communication? I have a simple sketch that echos “hello world” every half second, the sketch works fine on an arduino, but with the trinket pro I just get garbage bytes, same baud rates etc etc…. only think I can think of is the 12mhz clock is screwing up the serial timing?

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