Over the last year, Hackaday.io has seen an incredible project. It’s a migratory box of random electronic junk, better known as the Travelling Hackerbox. The idea behind this mobile electronic surplus store is simple: receive the box, take out some cool electronic gizmos, add some of your own, and send it on to the next person on the list. It is the purest expression of the hacker aesthetic, all contained in a cardboard box.
Last week, the Travelling Hackerbox appeared at the Hackaday Superconference where it was torn asunder. Its silicon and plastic innards were spilled for a badge hacking competition. The body of the box is gone from this world but the spirit lives on. Parts were collected, pins straightened, the contents of anti-static bags condensed, and now it’s time for the Travelling Hackerbox to leave the nest. It’s going down to the post office, sending in its passport application, and it’s finally heading out into far-flung lands that are not the United States.
Over the last year, and despite some jerk in Georgia, the Traveling Hackerbox has racked up the miles. From Maine to Flordia, and from Alaska to Hawaii, the Hackerbox has distributed parts to dozens of labs and workstations. If you want to get an idea of the box, the last recipient, Carl Smith, put together a great summary and photo log of what he found in this magical box.
I’ve always promised the Hackerbox would go international after racking up 25,000 miles – the distance around Earth’s equator. Now, it’s finally time. This is happening, and I’m looking for volunteers to take care of the box.
How this is going to go down
Right now, the Travelling Hackerbox is sitting at the Hackaday Overlords office in Pasadena. The next trip will be to Canada, hopefully around Vancouver, where it will eventually make it to the Maritimes. From there, the box will travel to Europe (West to East, possibly ending in Russia). The box will then travel through Africa, ending South Africa, and head over the Indian Ocean to Australia. The rest of Oceania, Southeast Asia, India, and China will be next, possibly followed by South and Central America. With any luck, the Travelling Hackerbox will arrive back at home base by next year.
Of course, this all depends on how many members of the hackaday.io community would like to receive the box and where those people are located. If you want to receive the box, this is the sign-up form [the sign up form is now closed]. This form will be open for the next week, afterwards I will look at the responses, consider each of them, and plan this epic trip around the world.
The current state of the box
The Travelling Hackerbox was originally based on a US Postal Service flat rate box. Because flat rate boxes are for US destinations only, the physical manifestation of the box must change. At the very least, this gives me an opportunity to laminate a new box in packing tape and reinforce the edges of the cardboard.
The new body for the Travelling Hackerbox is a 12x12x3 inch (about five liters) cardboard box, lovingly protected and reinforced with stickytape. This does reduce the overall volume of the somewhat, which required the disposal of a few parts that weren’t really cool. I assure you, nothing of great value was lost, and I only removed the larger, bulkier components I remember seeing the last time I had it.
All the coming travels will be planned next week when I get a few submissions to the international sign-up form.
You keep saying “Some jerk in Georgia” and it makes me wonder if somehow all of Georgia has been banned from the travelling box-o-stuff. That would make many of us unhappy.
Jerks in Georgia are banned.
Succinct!
Noting by the picture at https://cdn.hackaday.io/images/5337331449918816481.png I am relieved that I was not the recipient of the missing box. But that’s almost in Tennessee or South Carolina. Maybe give us Mid/Southern GA folks some credit…
The first box isn’t on that map.
Eventually, I’m going to do a really cool After Effects animation of where the box went. For now, it’s just an indecipherable image of where the *second* box went.
Thx…this is a cool idea
Will the box stop in the U.S?
Exactly once.
:(
What is this a picture of: https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/box1.jpg
That was not in the box by the time I got it, or I would have probably taken it.
It’s a tiny CRT viewfinder, probably from an old camcorder. People like to use them to make things with tiny screens like a CRT clock.
I appreciate being included in the Traveling Hacker Box route. Hopefully the items I included made the cut for the international trip. Thanks to Benchoff for mentioning my project log. If you scroll all the way down to the end I also made a YouTube video of my unboxing of the contents, where I discussed all the important items, what I took from the box, and what I added.
I figured the box would be opened up at the Supercon but I didn’t put 2 and 2 together to realize the parts would be used for the badge hacking activities. It would be interesting to learn what was used and how, if any of that was documented.
Future recipients of the box — please don’t be a jerk and steal the box like that one guy in Georgia.
It is funny to me that this international box’s dimensions are 12x12x3 inches. :P
Is there a way to ‘donate’ to anyones traveling box? I don’t have any hacker/makerspaces nearby.
I wish there was an e-waste program specifically for people like us.
But free.
Well I just signed up. I would be happy to manage the Australian leg of the hackerBox’s world tour. We actually have Jerks here to. Believe it not we actually breed Jerks because it would be inhumane to let crocodiles starve to death.
But anyway – most people are honest respectable people that don’t let the bad behavior of jerks spoil our fun.
And for laughs I have added my name to the list…..
So… the hackerbox is fleeing the states ? mayebe something to do with the elections?
Anyway great initiative, hope to be seeing it coming this way (France, you know, where we ave an outrageous accent, and a very nice grail )
A photo of that grail would fit in the box…
Done :)
I just returned from Yukon Territory, but Los Angeles in not really “International”. How did I miss this awesome effort? No clue. Perhaps a random surgery, or other vacation. Australia last November, knee replaced this summer, Alaska and Yukon last month. Still have some mini CRTs from camcorders, and a wearable mono CRT with the name “P C Private Eye Display” still on the box. Could have donated that one for sure. Oh well. Next time.
Long live the Traveling Hacker Box! Good journeys my friend, I enjoyed your visit with me.
Isn’t this just the same concept as The Great Internet Migratory Box of Electronics Junk (TGIMBOEJ), which has been around for years (www.tgimboej.org)? This one, of course, has better tracking.
I was just about to bring this up!
Most boxes are MIA. However I see at least two with tracking info from this year.
I got one AND passed it on 5-7 years ago… then another came and it got absorbed into my junk collection… I am not proud of this – i kept it separate with the original paperwork for years, but moving a junk collection twice in rapid succession tends to shift priorities FAR down the proverbial list.
I have soooo much to get rid of right now! I might be willing to start some NEW boxes if there is interest.
The Great Migratory Boxes have one flaw: there’s more than one of them. There’s just one Travelling Hacker Box active at one time, which allows for more social pressure that the box may continue on its journey.
Thank you very much.
I just put in a post yesterday asking about it.
Great thanks