HackaDay Is Entering In The Redbull Creation Contest

June 26, 2012 by Caleb Kraft 10 Comments

When I returned from MakerFaire Kansas City I was very pleased to find a Bullduino waiting on my doorstep! Hackaday has been accepted into the first round of the Redbull Creation Contest. I’m doing the physical building while the other writers are consulting for this round. I’m also pulling people from around me here at SquidFoo (my local hackerspace) that can help.

Today, I got lucky enough to run into [Tony Sherwood] from MakerBot. I told him my idea and he eagerly volunteered to lend his brains and his brawn… as well as his Makerbot Replicator. He’s been extremely helpful so far offering very good ideas on how we can get this thing operational as fast as possible.

I’m not going to share exactly what we’re building yet. I can tell you it will not be the most complex project, but it will be really fun, and most likely dangerous. We’re starting today, which means we have very little time to build. Lets hope we can make something interesting enough to go to round two!

Redbull’s New Creation Contest Comes To Your Workshop

June 15, 2012 by Caleb Kraft 18 Comments

We get bombarded with press releases daily. Our inbox overflows with brand new iPhone cases and cheap LED manufacturers in china. We generally have no interest in sharing obvious product advertisement with you. However, some people understand what we’re interested in. Redbull gets it. They’re embracing hackers and running contests that promote DIY/hacking. Last year, we saw some cool results from their contest.

So, we’re happy to announce that this year, they are doing it again! Only this time, the contest will come to the location of the entrants! If you qualify to be one of the final teams involved, they’ll set up to stream live from your home workshop/hackerspace for the contest. You might be thinking, “aren’t you just advertising for red bull?”, we feel that as long as they’re promoting hacking, they’re advertising for us!

You can catch the details after the break.

Continue reading “Redbull’s New Creation Contest Comes To Your Workshop” →

Win $40,000 For Squirting Plastic Out Of A Nozzle

May 22, 2012 by Brian Benchoff 47 Comments

3D printers such as the RepRap and Makerbot turn spools of plastic filament into just about any object imaginable. There’s a problem though: this filament costs about $40 a kilogram, and raw plastic pellets cost about 1/10th of that. Obviously, there’s a lot of room for improvement. The folks at Inventables are throwing $40,000 at the problem in a contest to build a machine that takes plastic pellets and turns it into usable plastic filament.

The object is simple: build a device that takes ABS or PLA pellets and turns them into a 1.75mm filament. The machine has to cost less than $250, be able to add colorant to the plastic, and be usable in a 3D printer. The winner gets $40,000, a laser cutter, a 3D printer, and a CNC milling machine courtesy of Inventables. Sign up on the official contest website and don’t be shy about sending your progress into the Hackaday tip line

If you’d like to get started, here’s a great page that goes over the basics of plastic extrusion, and a few attempts (1, 2) from [Adrian Bowyer] and [Forrest Higgs] that show exactly how hard this is. There’s also the Filabot that had a successful Kickstarter, but there’s apparently been no (or very limited) progress in the four months since the Kickstarter. I’ve even given this idea a go, but am currently stuck at manufacturing a proper auger. To put this in perspective, this is the moonshot of the current crop of 3D printers; a simple device to lower the barrier of entry to 3D printing is desperately needed, and we’ve got to give props to the Inventables crew for putting this contest together.

You’re Invited To Sift Through 100 Terabytes Of Data For NASA

April 19, 2012 by Caleb Kraft 17 Comments

Most people we know had at least one phase where they dreamt of working for NASA. That dream may have faded for many of us, but it could suddenly be a real possibility again with a tournament NASA is holding. The goal is to sift through all of the data that they have collected; roughly 100 terabytes of pictures, telemetry data, ~~top secret pictures of martian yeti~~, and models. All of this information was gathered over different missions, on different instruments, in different formats. It is a mess. Take this data and make it easily accessible to both scientists, and non-scientists. They want their information to be useful and compelling to the world.

The grand prize for your fantastic final result is $10,000 and the title of “Space Coder of the Galaxy 2012”. I know I’d settle for a week at space camp.

Note: I just noticed the following bit:

And one talented high school winner will receive a special VIP invitation from NASA

I’m not sure if that means this is for high schoolers only, but I’m pretty sure it means a lot of them won’t identify with that space camp link above.

Worried About Haloween This Year? Why Not A Giant T-Rex Costume?

February 23, 2012 by Jeremy Cook 12 Comments

Although some might note that [Jamie]’s creation could mistaken for a Velociraptor or even Allosaurus, his giant T-Rex costume/model is quite a feat of artistry. It stands at over 14 feet tall and 10 feet long. For comparison, the room that you see in the picture above measures 25 x 25 feet. If you happen to live in the Atlanta area, or are willing to travel, this costume is expected to make an appearance at Dragon*Con in 2012, so be sure to look for it there.

The whole thing is made from poly foam plank cut with a CNC router. It also has a metallic support structure. As noted in the article, you could, in theory, cut all these parts out by hand. Persistence would be required though, since there are over 140 parts!

[Jamie]’s making capabilities are obviously quite advanced at this point, but he’s trying to expand them by winning a router in the Instructables Shopbot contest. If you like his creation, be sure to vote for him! Check out the video of this costume in action after the break. Continue reading “Worried About Haloween This Year? Why Not A Giant T-Rex Costume?” →

[Grenadier] Wins The Laser Cutter For His Portable X-ray Project

January 13, 2012 by Mike Szczys 13 Comments

The results of the Full Spectrum Laser contest over at Build Lounge have been announce. The top prize of a 40 watt deluxe laser cutter goes to [Grenadier] for the portable x-ray machine we saw at the beginning of the month. We think this is an excellent choice for top prize because, come on, this is pretty hard-core.

Taking second place was a Christmas light show choreographed to music. The open spaces of the University of Minnesota hosted the installation. We’ve embedded a video of the performance after the break.

Third prize went to the QC Co-lab Hackerspace for their light wall. It uses the ever popular GE Color Effects lights, with each bulb housed in a vacuum formed pyramid which acts as a diffuser.

There were also several honorable mentions. There’s a special place in our heart for [Jack Buffington’s] solar clock which was included in this group. We think the use of fiber optics to pipe the sunlight into a machined index ring is ingenious. And you’ve got to give him credit for developing a project that uses no electricity and almost no moving parts (there is a slider to adjust for daylight savings time).

Continue reading “[Grenadier] Wins The Laser Cutter For His Portable X-ray Project” →

Voting Is Open For The Buildlounge Laser Cutter Contest

January 3, 2012 by Brian Benchoff 22 Comments

A few months ago, Buildlounge and Full Spectrum Laser started a contest to win a 40 Watt laser cutter. The only requirement? Submit a project that uses light in some way. The deadline is now over and voting is open, right on the buildlounge.com page.

First place gets a 40 Watt laser cutter provided by Full Spectrum Laser. Second place is a neat green laser courtesy of Wicked Lasers, and Third place is an EL wire starter kit from Adafruit.

There’s a lot of really awesome projects that were submitted for this contest. The laser terminal looks really cool, as does the friggin huge LED wall and choreographed light show. We would be remiss if we neglected to mention that there’s a home-made x-ray machine in the running, and of course there’s the mathematical precision of fellow Hack a Day-er [Jack]’s solar clock that isn’t a sundial.

The guys at Buildlounge got a lot of submissions for this project, so head on over and vote for your favorite. The winners will be announced next week, Friday, the 13th of January.