Some of the entries we got into the Tiny Games Contest have been really mind-blowing. Just as you think you’ve seen it all, for instance, alnwlsn comes along and mills the DIP-package ATtiny84 and embeds a complete Simon game in the space normally wasted by all that plastic overmolding. It’s the tiniest, and most gonzo, circuit-sculpture Simon we’ve ever seen.
Now, our judges are hard at work ranking all 80 of the entries, and we have a fantastic range of entries all around, so I’m not calling any winners yet. But have you ever seen a project milled into a chip before? Nope, me neither.
What’s amazing is that this happens every time we run a contest. The second you put limitations on a project, there’s always someone out there who says “Hold my beer” and blows the limits out of the water. Indeed, the frequency with which we see someone pull off the impossible on Hackaday makes me wish I were buying more lottery tickets. You all really are stupendous.
We hope that feats like this are as inspirational to you as they are to us. No idea is too bonkers to not at least give it a try. Who knows, it might work! And when it does, please write it up and let us know. Keep the cycle of inspiration going!
Honestly, the idea for something like this comes directly from years of reading Hackaday, which I’ve been doing since middle school. Some projects that inspired this one are https://hackaday.com/2011/12/19/ask-hackaday-troll-physics-edition/ and https://hackaday.com/2011/12/19/ask-hackaday-troll-physics-edition/ or that time Ben Krasnow decapped an IC so he could look at it in his homemade electron microscope. These are all from years ago but for some reason I remembered them. Let this be a lesson to please share your work! It’s certainly something I’ve been trying to do more recently. You never know!
One of those links was meant to be https://hackaday.com/2014/12/25/student-trolls-anti-arduino-prof-with-parasite-mcu/. No edit button. Some things never change.
And some things probably shouldn’t change. Think of how dull this place could get without the odd competition that always brings out the crazy in a fun way ideas.
Also while I’d quite like to edit from time to time a free for all of editing could easily lose the context of the usually excellent conversations in the comments. And then there is the hassle of having to log in with some account to be allowed… On the whole better to leave the mistakes in my opinion.
+1 ….. these small competitions are great fun. No need for those extravagant $20k prizes – a few hundred $ and tonnes of street cred are all that’s reqd IMO …… but then again, I’m not completely skint.
BTW ….. how does the human body light up such a large light bulb? A small diode, yes, but the bulb shown in the photo seems quite untenable :(
Nothing up my sleeves!
A cable up the sleeves would do (as seen between middle and index finger on the pic) … just don’t touch the solder spot while holding the thread