Slap Hackaday Logo On Something And Win A Trinket

October 21, 2013 by Mike Szczys 20 Comments

It’s no secret that we love to see project demos that pander to Hackaday. This often comes in the form of our page loaded on the screen in build photos, or creative use of our skull and wrenches logo. Now’s your chance to pander for a smidge of loot. [Phillip Torrone] offered up 20 of Adafruit’s new 5v Trinket boards as giveaways, and we can’t say no to getting free stuff in the hands of the readers.

So here’s the deal: Use the Hackaday logo on something. This can be just about anything. The images above show three examples made by Hackaday staff. There’s the logo built brick-by-brick on a Minecraft Survival server, a 3D version printed as a badge, and a somewhat squished version inside of a QR code. We will (seemingly arbitrarily) pick twenty winners from all of the submissions, but here’s a few guidelines to help you rise above:

Preference will be given to the largest (can you put us on the side of a building?) and smallest (electron microscope anyone?) submissions.
To make scaling easier here’s a vector graphic of the Hackaday Logo
Entries that explain what you did and how you accomplished it are more likely to be chosen as winners

This contest is over, thanks to all who sent in their work! ~~Send your submission details to our tips line (don’t forget to say something like [Trinket Contest] in the title!)~~. In order to receive a prize you must include your name, address, and email address (these will only be used by Adafruit to deliver the hardware and notify you when it has shipped). Get your entry in by Friday, November 1st in order to qualify. Obviously Hackaday, SupplyFrame, and Adafruit employees and their families aren’t eligible to win.

Thecontrollerproject’s First Contest, With Prizes

September 26, 2013 by Brian Benchoff 22 Comments

contest-prizes

One of [Caleb]’s side projects before he left us was TheControllerProject, a place for controller and console modders to hook up with gamers with disabilities. Things must be hopping over there, because [Caleb] just announced his first contest, with prizes, even.

The goal of this contest is to make the trigger buttons on XBox and PS3 controllers able to be controlled from the top of the controller. This is a huge problem for gamers with disabilities, and no open system currently exists to solve this problem. If you can make some sort of mechanical device to turn shoulder-mounted buttons into top-mounted actuators, just host it somewhere and win a prize.

The prizes are an iFixit toolkit and magnetic mat. The first five people to send in a solution to the shoulder mounted button problem get this prize. Originally, [Caleb] thought about tearing apart these controllers and soldering extra buttons, but a snap-on mechanical solution is much easier to install.

If you design a solution to this problem, send it in (but send it to [Caleb] first!) and we’ll probably feature it too.

Continue reading “Thecontrollerproject’s First Contest, With Prizes” →

Team Van Gogh Uses OpenXC To Create Art From Your Drive

September 18, 2013 by Adam Fabio 11 Comments

vangogh

In this video, [Joe Grand] takes us through [Team Van Gogh’s] entry in the OpenXC hackathon event. In what could possibly be the greatest road trip in history, [Joe Grand, Ben Krasnow, TechNinja, and Super Awesome Sylvia] all pile into a car. With them they bring a host of dev boards, wires, a CB Radio, and of course Sylvia’s WaterColorBot.

As their name implies, [Team Van Gogh] took a more artistic approach to the challenge than other teams. OpenXC steering, gear shift, accelerator and brake data is sent through a ChipKit to an RS-232 link into [TechNinja’s] laptop. The laptop translates the data into commands for the WaterColorBot. With this system, a simple Sunday drive can become abstract art.

The team also showed the concept of what could be done if OpenXC was extended to send data back to the vehicle – something Ford doesn’t support. Their example works when a phone call comes in by using the system to lower the volume on a CB radio standing in for car’s Bluetooth system.

Most of this challenge was completed with simulated data from the OpenXC vehicle interface. The team only had a few minutes to work the bugs out in a real vehicle. However, they proved their concepts well enough to win the grand prize.

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Write An Essay, Win A Tektronix Scope

August 23, 2013 by Mike Szczys 32 Comments

tektronix_scope_giveaway

Want a new scope for your hacking pleasures? How about one that rings in at $3650? That price tag makes us cringe, which is why we’re working on our 1k word essay to win one. The Tektronix MSO2024B pictured above is the top scope in its family and there’s more than enough features to start the drool flowing. Need more motivation? Check out the demo/advertising video below which walks through an overview of what the scope has to offer.

The contest — sponsored by EETimes and Tektronix — seeks to reward the best story about fixing a product that was disappointing on delivery but awesome when you got done hacking on it. Your thousand words or less are due by October 26th along with a fifty word bio about yourself, with the winner announced on Halloween. Be warned, you must register an account to qualify But we hit their daily article viewing limit while writing this post so you may need to log in just to read about the contest. Or clear their cookies… we are a hacking website after all.

They’re only giving away one scope. So don’t put this one off. Start polishing your totally ~~bogus~~ legit story about how you fixed something using mad engineering skills.

Continue reading “Write An Essay, Win A Tektronix Scope” →

RedBull Creation 2013: Final Thoughts And Recap

June 18, 2013 by Caleb Kraft 3 Comments

I have arrived home safely, and I’ll spare you the long and boring story of how horribly my airline experiences were, both directions. The contest was delightful. Not only did I get to watch the teams compete, I got to meet people that I’ve wanted to meet for a long time. The judges and shop monitors were a delight to talk with and work with. There are some great daily recap videos on the creation website, but I can’t embed them.

You’re probably wondering who won. Well, that was announced after I left. The public hadn’t even begun to vote on people’s choice (we weren’t even finished building the sign with the voting buttons!).

The judges were from all different areas of expertise. We had a form to fill out for each project that had several different values. There was functionality, aesthetics, resourcefulness, and some other stuff I can’t remember right now. [Greg] put together the criteria and I think he did a fantastic job at making the judging fair and balanced.

Continue reading “RedBull Creation 2013: Final Thoughts And Recap” →

Causing Trouble At RedBull Creation 2013

June 17, 2013 by Caleb Kraft 26 Comments

Skullduggery systems (a first time participant) came up with an extremely ambitious idea for their instrument. It was to be a jug, that would have a changing pitch based on water being pumped in and out. Ultimately, they ran into a few issues that meant that the effect wasn’t quite what they were looking for. They shouldn’t feel too bad, a bunch of teams didn’t succeed in making things the first year they participated.

What their instrument did do, however, I found simply delightful. The jug sounded just like feedback from the sound system. The contest was happening during a big music festival called the NorthSide festival. There was a stage and a huge crowd most of the time. They were testing their jug and we noticed that the band on stage (with a full crowd at the time), had stopped playing and was checking all their equipment. The sound guys were running around like crazy. They thought they were getting feedback.

We held off for a while and decided we would wait till sound checks to mess with them. While we wanted to cause trouble, we didn’t want to ruin the show for an entire crowd. As you can see in the video, the sound is very much like feedback. They would begin to play, then stop to track down this mysterious feedback. We even tricked [Tyler] the announcer that was talking over our local sound system in the Redbull tent (by accident, I assure you).

The Secret Projects At The RedBull Creation Challenge

June 15, 2013 by Caleb Kraft 15 Comments

You’ve all already seen that there are 6 teams making some kind of a musical instrument. However, there are two more projects that have materialized out of nowhere and are looking like a lot of fun.

In the shop, there are “Shop Monitors”, artists and hackers who are here to help the teams get stuff built. There are also the judges. Since all of us have some experience and craving for making things, you can imagine that no one is just twiddling their thumbs.

[Greg] the lead judge has taken this opportunity to play with the plasma cutter and various metal working tools and is making a voting system so that the public can walk up and hit a button to vote on their favorite. Yup, those are easy buttons you see there. This thing is shaping up to be pretty nice looking thanks to that cutting machine and [Greg’s] hard work.

[JoeJoe], the guy who built the turbull incabulator is building “piss bot”, an inside joke turning to reality. Pissbot will literally just freak out and urinate all over. Don’t ask why, ask why not.