Astronaut Or Astronot: Nobody Won (This Week)

July 25, 2014 by Brian Benchoff 55 Comments

Another week, another round of Astronaut or Astronot, the little lottery thing where we try to give away some fairly expensive tools to a random person on hackaday.io if they have voted for The Hackaday Prize. You should vote. Go here and do that.

This week, the random hacker selected was [oscar6ojeda], but he did not vote. This means he doesn’t get a huge bench power supply. Oh well. I’ll send him a t-shirt and a few stickers. That’s fair compensation for doing nothing, right?

We’re doing the same thing next week, so go here and vote. Voting in previous rounds doesn’t count, so you’ll only win the supply if you vote for The Hackaday Prize project with the most outrageous component.

Cosmonaut Or Taikonot: Vote For The Most Outrageous Component

July 24, 2014 by Brian Benchoff 6 Comments

We have a new round of Astronaut or Astronot, the little community voting thing we’re doing for The Hackaday Prize. Why should you care? Because tomorrow (Friday, 10:00 AM Eastern) we’re doing a voters lottery. We’re selecting a random person on hackaday.io, and if that person has voted, they win a pretty awesome bench power supply.

Why are we telling you this now? Because voting in previous rounds doesn’t count for this round. If you want to nab a power supply, you need to vote. We previously gave away an awesome scope, and a very cool 3D printer to a random person on hackaday.io. Judging from previous rounds, I’d guess the odds of us giving away the supply this week are pretty good, but I’m not doing those maths right now. I’ll post a video of the drawing tomorrow around 10:30 Eastern.

New Round Of Astronaut Or Not: Most Outrageous Component

July 23, 2014 by Mike Szczys 33 Comments

And so ends round 2 of Astronaut or Not. We asked you to vote for the projects “most likely to be used in other projects”. Again you didn’t disappoint. We had a mountain of votes, and happily gave away a Bukito portable 3D printer to one of the lucky voters.

You must vote at least once in this new round to be eligible for the voter lottery on Friday!

Vote for the project with “the most outrageous component”. Can’t figure out what we mean by that? Well, if you come across an entry that has a quarter-million-dollar hard drive in it… vote for that one.

Voter Lottery Prize:

BK Precision 1760A How long have you been making do with a hacked together power supply?

Be sure you vote and you could kiss those days goodbye with this BK Precision 1760A bench supply. It has three channels; 0-30V 0-2A on the first two and 4-6.5V 0-5A on the third. We’re also throwing in some leads so that you can be up and running as soon as it arrives.

We’ll draw a random number on Friday morning. If you have voted at least one time in this current round (your participation in previous rounds doesn’t matter) and your hacker number is drawn you will win! But if your number is drawn and you haven’t voted… no bench supply for you.

Now for the results:

Continue reading “New Round Of Astronaut Or Not: Most Outrageous Component” →

Vote Or Be Sorry — Round 2 Of Astronaut Or Not

July 10, 2014 by Mike Szczys 37 Comments

Have you voted in the second round of Astronaut or Not? You’d better get in there by Friday at 9pm EDT or miss your chance to win a Bukito Portable 3D Printer in the voter’s lottery.

You must vote at least once per round to be eligible. At the appointed time we’ll draw a random number and look up to see if that profile on Hackaday.io has voted. If so, winner winner (like the Rigol scope that was awarded last Friday). If not, no Bukito for you! This new round just started at the beginning of the week. Your vote quota has been restored, and we tweaked the interface to only show you each project once.

In addition to your own gain, you’re helping us choose which projects deserve a bit of swag. We’re one again sending shirts to the projects who rise to the top of the head-to-head gudgematch.

UPDATE: To clarify, you must vote in the current round to be eligible for the current voter lottery. Your participation in previous rounds has no bearing on the current round eligibility.

All Precincts Reporting — Next Round Of Voting Is Now

July 8, 2014 by Mike Szczys 35 Comments

Check out the vote tally which [Alek] put together (click for a much larger version). We couldn’t be more delighted at how the first round of voting for Astronaut or Not went. With very nearly 50k votes it’s time to start another round.

This is an entirely new round. Your 30 votes have been restored and you must vote at least once in this new round to be eligible for the voter lottery. The theme has also changed; vote for projects whose ideas are most likely to be used in other projects. That is to say: is there a core piece of cleverness that, properly explained and modularized, would be extremely extensible? Then vote for that one!

Links to the 15 winners are listed after the break; everyone on this list is getting a T-shirt and some stickers. The same will be true for the next round but we’re changing up the Voter Lottery prize — it’ll be similarly valuable and desirable but we’ll save details for this for Thursday. Make sure you vote or risk losing Friday’s lottery!

Continue reading “All Precincts Reporting — Next Round Of Voting Is Now” →

Astronaut Or Not — Voter Lottery Tomorrow!

July 3, 2014 by Mike Szczys 29 Comments

astronaut-or-not-voter-lottery

Fair warning, if you haven’t voted on Astronaut or Not you may come up short tomorrow. [Brian] will once again draw a random hacker number at 10am EDT (GMT -4).

If that hacker has voted in this round (we’re still in the first round of voting) they will win this fabulous oscilloscope. If they haven’t voted… no fancy scope for you!

We’re hoping to close this round of voting early next week at which time we’ll award prizes to the projects that received the most votes and start another round with a different theme.

Astronaut Or Not! Your Vote Matters.

June 19, 2014 by Mike Szczys 18 Comments

You know that little contest we’re running? The one that sends a grand prize winner into SPACE!

We’re happy to announce that community voting for The Hackaday Prize starts today. It’s an interface that we’ve been calling Astronaut or Not! We have hundreds of prizes to give away and this is your chance to decide who some of them go to.

Best Project Concept

This week we’re voting on the best project concept. Don’t vote on projects based on how much work they have done or how many pictures there are, pick the ones that have the potential to be the the best project. We’ll be sending shirts to the top 10 projects voted on over the next few days.

We don’t want this to be purely a popularity contest, so we’re shaking things up a bit. Instead of voting for a particular project we’re pairing the entries in random head-to-head match-ups, with Hackaday readers deciding the ultimate ranking. Check out the contenders, learn a bit about each project, then choose the one you think is more worthy of The Hackaday Prize.

Submit your entry now to be included!

Astronaut or Not isn’t going to decide the top prizes, all entries will still be reviewed by our various judging panels. We are planning to give away different prizes with each round of voting. So make sure you post your entry right away to get in on these giveaways!