contest

164 Articles

555 Design Contest, Win $1500+ In Prizes!

January 25, 2011 by 35 Comments

Sure, microcontrollers are useful, easy to apply, and ubiquitous, but where is the fun in the easy route? Well, for those of you out there with a little imagination and a 555 timer sitting around, there could be rewards in store. Brought to you by such famous personalities as Jeri Ellsworth and Chris Gammell, the 555 contest has prizes and awards for a number of different categories, such as over the top designs as well as awards for most minimalistic. To top it all off, they are even selling T-shirts to benefit engineering education charities.

The craziest (and possibly coolest) part of the entire contest is that the it has all been put together by the hacking community, with no exclusive sponsorship deals or payment to the organizers being accepted. In the spirit of giving, we will be adding some Hack a Day merch to the swag pile, so keep an eye out for the skull and wrenches. Currently the prize list includes a pair of Beagle Boards, a custom hacked Commodore 64 Joystick from Jeri, as well as a number of other project parts and lots more. The sponsorship list is still growing, so all of our information is tentative (and exclusive!), but be sure to check out the complete list so far after the break.

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Santa-Pede Challenge: Take Two

December 27, 2010 by 36 Comments

We are going to give the Santa-Pede Challenge another try. This time, you have till the end of January to do something (make it walk/crawl/scoot) with a dancing santa (or dancing musical holiday toy).  As you can see in my example, it doesn’t have to be complicated or efficient in any way.

Here are some issues and questions we would like to address:

1. Many of you suggested a banner of some type to remind you.
Great idea, we were waiting for some other features to be added, but we’ve just gone ahead and popped them in. You can see the featured items at the top of the right hand column.

2. Some pointed out that the “Buy Break Build” title isn’t very hack-ish since we often preach up-cycling.
yeah, we really think you should find these santas anywhere. The alliteration is fun though isn’t it?

You can get all the rules by going to the original post. Just note that the last date for entries will be January 31.

Newest Hardware Bounty, The Open Lidar Project

November 17, 2010 by 29 Comments

Inspired by the successful Kinect bounty put out by Adafruit, [gallamine] of the RobotBox community has posted his own $200 $400 bounty for the first person who can hack the scanning LIDAR from Neato Robotic’s XV-11 vacuumbot. This sensor would be particularly useful to any robotic makers out there, because even the full retail price of the vacuum is less than the cost of most standalone LIDAR units, which often run upwards of $1000. The bounty seems to be growing every day, starting out at $200, and doubling thanks to a couple of other interested parties.

Luckily, from what we hear, the sensor was never made to be hack-proof (and perhaps even secretly hack friendly?), seeing as one of the prime developers of the sensor is a member of a certain Home Brew Robotics Club. We love it when companies are nice to hackers, and we hope to see more examples of this in the future. Not sure what the XV-11 is? Be sure to check out the video after the break for info about the vacuum and its scanning LIDAR.

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Renesas RX Design Contest: $110K+ Of Cash And Prizes

November 14, 2010 by 34 Comments

It seems that we have caught Design Contest Fever here at Hackaday. After covering some other design contests, and asking readers to send in more, we heard from a couple tippers about Renesas’ challenge. Like many of the other contests, entrants can submit their ideas, and possibly receive a free development board to get them started. Unlike the other contests though, Renesas board (possibly) free development board is everything but the kitchen sink. Designed with RTOS’s in mind, rather than the normal microcontroller tasks, this board has an astounding number of capabilities.

On top of the excellent development kit, the contest is also offering books, software, and cash prizes to the winners. So get out there, design something amazing, and make Hackaday proud.

Single-motor Walker For Santa-Pede Challenge Inspiration

November 10, 2010 by 11 Comments

This LEGO hexapod uses just one motor for motion. In the video after the break you can see that what [Valetnin Bauer] accomplished is almost magical, using just 210 parts. A central drive shaft uses worm gears to transfer motion to each of the legs. The limb mounting technique results in a sort of rowing motion that closely mimics what you’d expect to see from a biological hexapod.

We thought this might provide some inspiration for the Buy Break Build: Santa-pede challenge. Sure, using LEGO is a lot easier than reusing Santa parts. But a lot can be accomplished with a little creativity. Another point of inspiration might be this one-motor walker that should be a snap to adapt to the challenge. Better get going, just twenty days let until the project deadline!

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Czech Discovery Ressurects PS/2 Keyboard

November 8, 2010 by 17 Comments

Like us, you probably have piles of old PS/2 keyboards occupying strategic positions in your house and causing all sorts of trouble with the neighbours. As luck would have it, there is a way to put those lazy peripherals to work!

Our friends in the Czech Republic have successfully interfaced a PS/2 keyboard to an STM32 Discovery board (translated), and not a moment too soon—just in time for you to integrate their work into your entries for those juicy contests we told you about (the European one and the North American one).

The project page contains an in-depth walkthrough of how the PS/2 connection talks to the keyboard hardware along with source code and links, more than enough information to get started with a PS/2 keyboard hack on your Discovery application. And why stop at keyboards? Give your old PS/2 mouse a new lease on life, or even hook up your custom game controller to spice up the experience.

Win Big: American Design Style

November 8, 2010 by 20 Comments

Last week we announced a Germany based design contest only accepting applicants from Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. Unfortunately, this left out one of the larger segments of our readers. After doing some scrounging around (and a helpful tip from [Flash Gordon]), we managed to find a similar contest run by STMicroelectronics, the makers of the Discovery board. This contest sounds familiar, with free Discovery Board for all approved applicants, and prizes for the most interesting and creative projects. Right now the official rules page seems to be missing, so you technically legally should probably wait to enter, but we can’t stop you. It looks like the official rules page is located here. Thanks to [Andee] for pointing that out. Also, it looks like if you live in Puerto Rico or Quebec, you are also out of this contest as well.

If you are from the EMEA area and missed the last contest, be sure to go back and check it out for your chance to win! Also, we love covering contests (especially ones that give out free kits to all contestants), are there any readers out there that know of a developer other than STM that is offering this kind of deal? We would love to hear from you!