Teams hacking on hardware won big this weekend in New York. There were ten teams that answered Hackaday’s call as we hosted the first ever hardware hackathon at the Tech Crunch Disrupt NYC. These teams were thrown into the mix with all of the software hackers TC was hosting and rose to the top. Eight out of our ten teams won!
As we suspected, having something physical to show off is a huge bonus compared to those showing apps and webpages alone. Recipe for awesome: Mix in the huge talent pool brought by the hardware hackers participating, then season with a dash of experience from mentors like [Kenji Larson], [Johngineer], [Bil Herd], [Chris Gammell], and many more.
Out of over 100 teams, first runner-up went to PicoRico, which built a data collection system for the suspension of a mountain bike. The Twillio prize went to Stove Top Sensor for Paranoid, Stubburn Older Parents which adds cellphone and web connectivity to the stove, letting you check if you remembered to turn off the burns. The charismatic duo of fifteen-year-olds [Kristopher] and [Ilan] stole the show with their demonstration of Follow Plants which gives your produce a social media presence which you can then follow.
We recorded video and got the gritty details from everyone building hardware during the 20-hour frenzy. We’ll be sharing those stories throughout the week so make sure to check back!
The plants.. They tweet?
I noticed this trend (was the only HW entry in something and, predictably, won :D ) but sadly, I think HW projects tend to be taken beyond the weekend (wanted to start a company, bailed out when I saw how hard manufacturing was going to be). With an app you can often just brush up the code and hit publish whereas scaling from hacked-together prototype is going to need a decent amount of effort, time and capital. Nonetheless, go hardware!! And well done to all the guys who did so well :)
I forgot to tag our team, nooooooo
We did this project http://challengepost.com/software/lit-subway
Awesome!