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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 [...]

Tags:  phase terabytes nasa contests  

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 [...]

Tags:  haloween t-rex giant rex jamie rex-costume velociraptor artistry contests  

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 [...]

Tags:  grenadier laser cutter laser-cutter ray-machine full-spectrum contests  

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. [...]

Tags:  laser cutter buildlounge watt-laser laser-cutter full-spectrum contests  

Pull out your old Fritzing designs, or churn out a new one, and you might be able to win one of these prizes. Fritzing is looking for the top three designs which will receive these prizes. On the left is a Fritzing super upgrade kit with goodies like a Character LCD, DC motor and driver [...]

Tags:  fritzing stuff win character-lcd dc-motor upgrade-kit contests  

[Nathan], a member of the DangerousPrototypes forums, was looking for a project he could use to enter the 7400 logic competition they are holding. His kids had a small ride on police car, but the light bar on top contained no lights, and the car made no sounds when his children were in pursuit of [...]

Tags:  delight toy car nathan toy-car police-car sirens contests  

The dollar store is always a great place to find some weird stuff, so when [jethomson] found a flickering Jack-o’-lantern, he thought it would make a great project for the 74xx logic competition. Instead of using the flickering incandescent lightbulb that came with the blinking pumpkin, [jethomson] decided to rebuild a blinking circuit around a [...]

Tags:  incandescent-lightbulb jack-o-lantern dollar-store contests  

If you’re between the ages of 14 and 18, or have a child who is, here’s a chance to put a project into space. NASA is partnering with YouTube, Lenovo, and a few other entities for a contest that challenges participants to dream up low-gravity experiments. You can enter as an individual or in teams [...]

Tags:  hackers space project gravity-experiments space-nasa low-gravity contests  

[Emily Daniels] recently snagged a free iPad in the Instructables “Play with your food challenge” with an interesting way to work with LEDs. Growing up, most kids attempted to make, or at least have seen rock candy be produced. [Emily] thought it would be interesting to mix LEDs with the stuff to see what she [...]

Tags:  treat leds candied emily emily-daniels rock-candy play-with-your-food ipad contests  

Buildlounge and Full Spectrum Laser have decided to give away a laser cutter to whoever comes up with the best project involving light. The contest is in part sponsored by  adafruit industries. The focus of the contest is light – just design something around light, submit it, and you’re in the drawing for your own [...]

Tags:  laser contest cutter laser-cutter full-spectrum adafruit contests  

The guys from Bloomington’s Fraternal Order of Lock Sport (FOOLS) sure know how to throw a party! At this year’s DerbyCon event down in Louisville, the group put on an awesome event that combined lockpicking and drinking – what could be better? The Rumble Challenge is lock picking game where six people compete head to [...]

Tags:  competition hackerspace event bloomington louisville lockpicking fraternal-order how-to-throw-a-party contests  

Launching high-altitude balloons to take pictures of the Earth from space is great fun. Heck, even credit card commercials are now suggesting you cash in your rewards points to organize a space balloon adventure for you and your friends. Capturing snapshots of the Earth from space is such a good time that Workshop 88, a [...]

Tags:  workshop balloon space heck high-altitude-balloons balloon-adventure earth-from-space contests  

If you’ve always wanted a 3D printer, here’s your chance to win one. Makerbot Industries wants the Internets to design a new mascot for them. The contest winner will receive a Makerbot Thing-o-matic. Don’t worry about a chicken or egg situation with this contest. You don’t actually need to print your design (although printability is [...]

Tags:  print makerbot contest don 3d-printer o-matic contest-winner contests  

Here’s another chance to ply your hacking skills for cash and prizes. Dangerous Prototypes has just announced the Open 7400 Logic Competition. First prize is $100 and a bunch of hacking goodies. But even better is that since it was announced, more sponsors have stepped up to increase the kitty, and the number of entries [...]

Tags:  logic paper graph discrete-logic graph-paper cash-and-prizes contests  

[John] wrote in to tell us about this contest hosted by Avnet. All one has to do is upload a video of their design to Avnet’s Youtube page.  There are four categories to choose from including: Solar, Communications, Transportation, and Entertainment. Four contestants can win an iPad2. The only catch, if you can call it [...]

Tags:  design contest avnet john solar-communications youtube contests  

72 hours of hacking came to a head with the completion of the Red Bull Creation. This years challenge was to build something out of junk that moves a human. It’s hard to pull all the aspects of the event together in one place, so here’s some links you’ll want to check out if you [...]

Tags:  bull creation red contest-results red-bull contests  

The crew over at the HarfordHackerspace used their wits and creativity to land a spot at the final round of Red Bull’s Creation challenge. The team arrived in Brooklyn just yesterday, ready to take on all comers in the 72-hour hacking challenge which kicked off earlier this morning. Like any other hacker convention, the Red [...]

Tags:  bull challenge red brooklyn hartford hacker-convention hacking-challenge comers contests  

Throw down your mad skills and you might win some cash while you’re at it. [Zeta] tipped us off that Freescale just announced a new challenge. They call it the Make It Challenge and it centers around their 32-bit Kinetis microcontrollers. These are ARM Cortex-M4 chips and if you’re selected to compete they’ll offer their [...]

Tags:  ARM challenge freescale mad-skills new-challenge contests  

Rube Goldberg machines are always a fan favorite around here. They truly embody the concept of over-engineering, and are an entertaining departure from what we normally cover on Hackaday. Back in February, engineering students from two on-campus professional associations at Purdue University teamed up to construct a world record-setting Rube Goldberg machine. Their entry in [...]

Tags:  machine goldberg rube rube-goldberg-machines rube-goldberg-machine rube-goldberg contests  

It’s been nearly two months since the official entry portion of the 555 timer contest came to a close, and the judges have been busy poring over the 200+ entries since. Now that the votes have been tallied, it’s just about time for the official results to be announced. The results will be live streamed [...]

Tags:  tonight contest entry contest-winners timer contests  

Ludum Dare 20 is only 10 days away! Great, what the heck is Ludum Dare? Well its only the most awesome video game creation contest on the internet, thats what. While originally for the hardest of the hard core, it has recently been split up into 2 events so everyone gets to have some fun. [...]

Tags:  dare ludum april game-creation what-the-heck hard-core contests  

[Todd Harrison] recently wrote in to tip us off on his submission to the Tektronix oscilloscope contest – using a scope to tune a piano. In his video he demonstrates how a Fast Fourier Transform can be used to determine the fundamental frequency of the note being played. This is a quick and easy way [...]

Tags:  piano tuning oscilloscope todd-harrison tektronix-oscilloscope piano-tuning contests  

[Joey] likes to dabble in laser projection, building his own hardware and writing the software that drives it. One way that he tests his setup is by replacing the laser assembly with an analog oscilloscope. This allows him to ensure that the driver board is receiving data from the software, and translating it into the [...]

Tags:  analog laser Software joey analog-oscilloscope laser-light-show laser-assembly contests  

Many of the robots we feature here are driven by some sort of microcontroller, whether it be an Arduino, Launchpad, Picaxe, etc. Rarely do we see a robot however, using analog circuits to perform higher-level functions typically relegated to those more complex controllers. Instructables user [hasn0life] built such a robot recently, which he entered into [...]

Tags:  analog robot workshop analog-circuits arduino level-functions contests  

[Brett] has had Nixie tubes on the brain ever since being introduced to them by a good friend of his. He decided that building a Nixie-based key chain would be the best way to familiarize himself with the technology, while also giving him a project to enter in the 555 Design Contest. He dug up [...]

Tags:  display nixie pint-sized design-contest key-chain contests  

Toppling dominoes is great fun for about 30 seconds at a time, when you are not busy setting them up for another run. [Randy] thought it was about time they got an electronic makeover to allow for constant, immediate gratification. Armed with a few simple electronic components, he has created Le Dominoux. These LED-based electronic [...]

Tags:  dominoes fun time randy endless-fun immediate-gratification contests  

[Jeri Ellsworth] sent us a video walkthrough of a hack she did a few years ago using a toy chicken with a motor operated mouth. She wired up a Bluetooth headset’s audio output to a LM386 audio amplifier, which drives the speaker she added to the chicken. The output of the audio amplifier was also [...]

Tags:  amplifier output chicken lm386-audio-amplifier jeri-ellsworth bluetooth-headset contests  

[Dino] recently sent us some info on his latest project, a 555 timer-based slider synthesizer. The synth was built to emulate the sound made by playing a slide whistle, and also as an entry into the 555 Design Contest, which is quickly coming to a close. If you’re not familiar with a slide whistle, just [...]

Tags:  slide synth fun dino slide-whistle fun-slide design-contest contests  

[Bob] has been busy lately putting the finishing touches on three different projects that he plans on entering into the 555 Design Contest. His first entry is a low-power H-bridge, which can be used to drive small servos. While he admits that it is a bit odd to build use a 555 timer to construct [...]

Tags:  design trio timer bob h-bridge 555-timer-projects design-contest contests  

We were sent [Dr. Offset’s] most recent project, a kid’s toy that is half sculpture/half noisemaker, but 100% cool. The device uses several 555 Timers and is his entry into the 555 Design Contest, which wraps up in just a few days. To really enjoy his creation, you need to suspend disbelief for a moment, [...]

Tags:  alien toy life dr.-offset 555-timers noisemaker alien-life contests  

[BadWolf] sent us a device called the “Bacon Beacon“, which is his 555 Design Contest entry. In short, it’s a life-saving device that emits an S.O.S. signal in Morse code over both the AM and FM bands. The device uses five 555 timers to get the job done, each of them dedicated to a specific [...]

Tags:  beacon bacon device morse s.o.s 555-timers morse-code fm-bands contests  

[haqnmaq] admits that he suffers from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and on occasion, can be found washing his hands up to 20 times an hour. Very distrustful of cloth towels, he exclusively uses paper towels to dry his hands, to the tune of 2-3 rolls a day. In an effort to lessen the impact his OCD [...]

Tags:  ocd air diy obsessive-compulsive-disorder cloth-towels paper-towels contests  

Several years ago [Michael Davis] built a charge controller for his wind turbine and published his construction plans online. This build became quite popular, especially among people that live in remote regions. He states that he is flooded with email each day with questions about his charge controller from people trying to troubleshoot its construction [...]

Tags:  construction controller charge michael-davis charge-controller wind-turbine timer contests  

[FightCube] wrote in recommending a very helpful piece of circuit simulation software for those of you still constructing entries for the 555 design contest.   LTSpiceIV, available from Linear Technology, allows you to construct moderately complex 555 driven circuits including common components such as capacitors, resistors, diodes, FETs, and more.  Once you have constructed your [...]

Tags:  simulation circuit Software circuit-simulation-software timer-circuit linear-technology contests  

Google has announced that it will be sponsoring a $20,000 prize at the 2011 CanSecWest Pwn2Own Contest. $20,ooo will be given to the first person to escape Chrome’s sandbox through Google-written code in the first day. If researchers are unsuccessful on the first day, then days two and three will be opened up to non-Google-written [...]

Tags:  chrome own pwn sandbox ooo first-person contests  

This is just a friendly reminder that our Santa-Pede challenge will be ending soon. Please send your submissions to us by emailing them to bbb@hackaday.com or by posting them in the projects section of our forum (did we mention we have a forum now?) by the end of January to be considered. We don’t care [...]

Tags:  reminder pede challenge friendly-reminder projects-section hackaday contests  

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 [...]

Tags:  design contest win chris-gammell jeri-ellsworth famous-personalities little-imagination contests  

Teen hackers get ready to compete for cash and prizes. Google, the big G itself, is sponsoring a Science Fair but it’s not in a town near you, it’s online (no surprise there). Project entries will populate the content of a new corner of the Googleverse, with contestants 13-18 competing alone or as a team. [...]

Tags:  science google fairs cash-and-prizes science-fairs big-g contests  

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 [...]

Tags:  santa challenge pede musical-holiday holiday-toy contests  

At the end of October we announced the Buy, Break, Build series kick off with “The Santa-pede Challenge“.  The goal was to get your hands on one of those annoying dancing santas, tear it apart, then use its parts to build something that walks. We got our hands on some cool prizes and even got [...]

Tags:  santa-pede conclusion challenge prizes contests  

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 [...]

Tags:  bounty lidar newest gallamine first-person contests  

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 [...]

Tags:  design contest renesas design-contests cash-and-prizes design-contest contests  

  Some robots aspire to greatness, revolutionizing our humanoid behaviour in ways we struggle to understand. They have traveled in space, photographing the stars like celestial paparazzi or snatching Martians up like interplanetary bed intruders. Some robots are happy to perform their everyday functions with dignity and grace, scrubbing our floors and thanking us for [...]

Tags:  robots stupid friggin dignity-and-grace everyday-functions martians contests  

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 [...]

Tags:  design-style flash-gordon design-contest contests  

Are you an independent inventor? It might just be your lucky day. The fine folks at Independent Inventor TV, a new show currently filming for Revision3, is looking for home and garage based inventors to present their inventions for the camera. Currently they are based out of San Francisco, CA and are looking to film [...]

Tags:  internet inventor day san-francisco independent-inventor inventor-tv lucky-day contests  

Full of video and audio sensors, the newly released Kinect is Microsoft’s answer to Nintendo’s Wii MotionPlus and Sony’s PlayStation Move. Now there is money up for grabs to hack it. Adafruit is offering up a one thousand dollar prize to open source the driver for the Kinect. What do they want this driver to [...]

Tags:  driver kinect prize dollar-prize wii grabs contests  

EBVElectronik of Germany is hosting a design contest based around the STM32F microcontroller. They are inviting engineers and inventors to come up with the best general purpose design ideas, with prizes including a Harley Davidson Motorcycle and a 1000 euro Apple voucher. Even better, they are offering a free STM32 Discovery Kit to anyone who [...]

Tags:  design stm contest harley-davidson harley germany harley-davidson-motorcycle discovery-kit purpose-design contests  

Welcome to the first Buy Break Build at hackaday,  sponsored by Adafruit Industries and Make. This challenge will be focusing on dancing Santas, or what is inside them. We’ve seen them everywhere, and may even have one or two in an attic somewhere. These annoying little guys should have enough bits and pieces inside to [...]

Tags:  santa-pede bbb challenge little-guys hackaday bits-and-pieces contests  

We are proud to introduce a new contest here at Hackaday. Buy Break Build will be regular event where we challenge you to make something from something else. We want to work out your hacker brains to come up with inventive ways to use limited parts. We may have a specific product or genre in [...]

Tags:  hackaday build break contest-series brains hacker contests  

We’ve always felt that the hacker community is a unique one. Make reader [Gnomic] is reinforcing that feeling by running his own contest with unused equipment. [Gnomic] is offering a free Robot lawnmower to someone, as long as they send the completed project writeup to Make.  The mower is a Robomower RL 850 and you [...]

Tags:  mower robo gnomic robot-lawnmower project-writeup free-robo contests  

You have until December 1st to get your entry into the Trossen DIY robotics contest. Unlike the last Trossen contest we told you about, this one has no clear theme. The goal is simply to make an awesome robot. Registration is free, and entries will be judged on Ingenuity, Originality, and presentation/documentation. There are prizes [...]

Tags:  trossen contest robotics robotics-contest trossen-robotics ingenuity contests  

The NY based hacker group named Ithacka has posted an interesting challenge. Buy a box of junk and build something with it following their guidelines. Document it and submit it for voting.  There are some rules that allow you to use a few pieces that don’t come from the box, but the list is short. [...]

Tags:  box ithacka challenge hacker-group contests  

Who is ready to win some tickets to the PUSH N900 Showcase? The showcase is an event where all 5 teams from the Push N900 competition are going meet up in London and present their N900 hacks. Including N900s that fly, skate, Etch a Sketch(TM), and more. We also hear there is going to be a [...]

Tags:  push contest showcase london hacks sketch contests