Close

Hackaday Prize Hack Chat Transcript - Pt.2

A event log for Hackaday Prize Hack Chat

With just a few days until the close of the first round, join in to get feedback and discuss your entries!

shulie-tornelShulie Tornel 04/28/2017 at 21:540 Comments

Nick Sayer I didn't make a hackaday project for it, but the firmware is on github: https://github.com/nsayer/SPI_Nixie

Alex Williams Has it been considered making a running counter for entered project stats (views, likes, follows etc)

Nick Sayer It's like the MAX6951, but for Nixies. It's made of an ATMega328p.

Yann Guidon / YGDES I insist that repeating the seed money "experiment" was a big mistake because it favors quantity over quality

davedarko @Michele Perla just ask

Michele Perla so

Alex Williams As the list on the hackaday prize page was interesting, but now that seed funding has ended, isn't updated

Peter McCloud @davedarko maybe they can change the "seed funding" to "Darko" funding for next years prize

Michele Perla My project is going to be composed of a lot of modules and submodules

davedarko @Peter McCloud ha, good one :)

Frank Buss @Nick Sayer I'm going to use a FPGA and many MOSFETs as the driver

Michele Perla How should I treat it? Should I make a project page for each module?

Yann Guidon / YGDES FTR : I've been taking daily snapshots of the leaderboard. You know, for science.

Nick Sayer @Frank Buss You go! I've not yet started with FPGAs. It's on the list.

Sophi Kravitz @Michele Perla you can do it however it feels best but make sure to link to all the modules if you're going to make separate projects

davedarko @Michele Perla for next funding round, yes - otherwise, until you actually use it with other components

TheThriftstoreHacker You should not care about winning a prize. Do it for the fun and importantly the science :)

Sophi Kravitz and I think it will be easier to follow if you keep them all as one project

Michele Perla Yeah I think the same @Sophi Kravitz

davedarko good point from @TegwynTwmffat @Michele Perla

Shulie Tornel Yes, I agree ^ @Sophi Kravitz @Michele Perla I think it will be more impactful and will make more sense for the judges to score

Neil K. Sheridan @TheThriftstoreHacker *thumbs up*

Michele Perla I remember something similar happened last year or two years ago. Maybe that was the same thing @davedarko was referring to some minutes ago

Sophi Kravitz Did this get answered yet? Do you expect the documentation to be formal PDF documents, or are the project details and logs sufficient?

Nick Sayer @Frank Buss I meant "You go" in the nice way... just to be clear.

Shulie Tornel @TheThriftstoreHacker for science!!!!

davedarko jup

Rene @Sophi Kravitz nope not yet ;) or maybe I missed it

Sophi Kravitz hi Rene

davedarko oh no, that was something else

Rene Hello all :)

TheThriftstoreHacker https://hackaday.io/project/20522-a-safer-hho-gas-carburetor-for-small-engines <-- probably not world changing but a great project i have been playing with.

davedarko we're at Martin Essers chinese knockoff

Sophi Kravitz sSo if you have datasheets, pdfs are good

davedarko syou've skipped two questions

Sophi Kravitz If you have schematics, pdfs and/ or the schematic/ board file are good too

Sophi Kravitz says:12:45 Pif a project would start a kickstarter or stuff like that and get funded before the end of the prize, how would the judges react to that?

Sophi Kravitz we can go back :)

Shulie Tornel Question: And concerning the seedbucks, what about the discrepancies between the official rules of the contest, and how it is presented/advertised, and actual measurements on the leaderboard?

TheThriftstoreHacker Do we get extra points for quality MSPaint drawings?

davedarko the more logs (less PDF openings) there are, the better is my opinion to the pdf question

TheThriftstoreHacker I do a lot of "thinking" in MSpaint

Jack Laidlaw @Michele Perla I wouldn't think it mattered how you funded your project, It comes down to how good the project is.

Michele Perla about the documentation: I suppose that as long as the documentation provided fullfills to explain whatever it needs, a paint drawing would be nice

Michele Perla or a plain .txt file

anfractuosity @TheThriftstoreHacker pixel art should be given bonus points!

davedarko on a human note: they'll probably think "oh he's fine already, I take the other project I like as much"

Michele Perla of course PDFs renderings schematics etc. that's also better

Morning.Star <perk> artwork? ;-)

davedarko jup, PDFs or at least high resolution pngs for schematics

TheThriftstoreHacker Maybe i should compile all of my drawings, logs, and info into a PDF and pin it to my project?

davedarko has anyone put in any licenses yet? kind of hard to think of one and list everything, while your still in MSPaint mode

Michele Perla heh I also have some doubts about it for my projects

Frank Buss LaTeX will result in geek bonus points :-)

Michele Perla on one module I have a CPLD and I was thinking of only releasing a binary file to burn on it

Michele Perla not the source, because trade secret and stuff

Yann Guidon / YGDES binary blobs : :-(

Frank Buss I think not open source gives you minus points

davedarko happens to the best... rPIs still have blobs, right?

Michele Perla Well I would really like to make a living out of this in the future

Michele Perla you know? If you know how to do something good, never do it for free

Frank Buss @davedarko I think the GPU part is now open sourced for the RPi, at least all registers etc.

davedarko if it involves burning a cpld, maybe that's protection enough :D

Jack Laidlaw @Michele Perla Arduino do quite well for themselves when they ain't bitching at each other with open hardware & software

anfractuosity

@davedarko i used one of the creative commons ones as they're the only ones for hardware i've really heard of, although i bet there are lots

Yann Guidon / YGDES dave: right :-D

davedarko I found an MIT one for hardware and software, put it in a license.txt file and uploaded it

anfractuosity ah cool

Sophi Kravitz Do you guys feel like you understand what documentation is needed?

Michele Perla @davedarko I also thought about protection on the CPLD, that's a good point

davedarko so if any chinese knockoffs will arise, I expect a good price, but nothing more

Michele Perla but I was also thinking of keeping a door open for updates

Sophi KravitIf you have a license, please link to it

BDM @Michele Perla Look at github license selection if you want to protect things.

Sophi Kravitz Your system diagram can be on MS Paint

davedarko @Michele Perla - that was more meant like: not everyone will be able to burn a cpld from start

Sophi Kravitz or OpenSCAD or Fusion or whatever

Sophi Kravitz schematic/ board can be pdf but prefer the actual file so it's open

BDM https://choosealicense.com/

davedarko so maybe that's protection enough - and anyone who might attempt, could be a helping hand in the future

Sophi Kravitz someone had a good point earlier about using Kicad or Eagle or whatever- post a pdf along with your file

Yann Guidon / YGDES dave: right, that's why I still have gigs, source code is only one little cog...

Sophi Kravitz can we move to next question @davedarko ?

Sophi Kravitz yeah? OK!

Michele Perla yes

davedarko sure

davedarko swhats the next?

BDM When will results be posted for this round?

Sophi Kravitz we usually post the results about a week after it closes

Shulie Tornel About a week after

Sophi Kravitz next up is : https://hackaday.io/project/20772-orthrus feedback

davedarko cool

Nick Sayer That's me! :D

davedarko I first overlooked that

Sophi Kravitz awesome

davedarko but I like it very much

TheThriftstoreHacker neat project idea.

Nick Sayer It's very close to complete. I have a working prototype with just a few firmware issues left.

davedarko that could be the next hardware snapchat btw.

davedarko well not snapchat

Sophi Kravitz if you are wondering about documentation, this project is a good example

Jack Laidlaw This project is cool

TheThriftstoreHacker Would it be easy to scale it out to 4, 8, 16 SD cards?

Sophi Kravitz hardware snapchat? how do you get that?

Sophi Kravitz ;)

Nick Sayer @TheThriftstoreHacker In principle, yes, but that makes the volume more fragile, unless you change the rules about how the crypto is done.

davedarko well you could share intimate stuff, but after a breakup nobody could expose you

Jack Laidlaw Dual custody Digital padlock

Nick Sayer @Jack Laidlaw That's it exactly. Two man control.

Yann Guidon / YGDES next idea : implement snatchat with minecraft...

Sophi Kravitz hehe

Nick SayeThe smallest SD card I could easily find new is like 8 GB, and that's way overkill for what you'd likely want to use Orthrus for.

davedarko wouldn't be surprised if that already existed, build with binary blocks @Yann Guidon / YGDES

Sophi Kravitz I think this is the last question: Why does the website allow submitting "old" projects to the HaD prize when the rules say the project must be created after the contest's opening ?

Nick Sayer Orthrus' achiles heel is that it's slow - I'm getting 200 KB/sec, and it's not likely to get much better, I fear.

Sophi Kravitz ^^ this was a bug and it is now fixed.

Frank Buss @Nick Sayer looks a bit complicated, why 2 SD cards? you would need only two parts of a key (e.g. in a small 1-wire device) and one SD card, like the multi signature concept known from Bitcoin

davedarko big bug

Sophi Kravitz squashed now

Jeremy Gilbert Anyone able to give me a proof-read of my project? Prepping it for the may 1st entry.

davedarko awesome @Sophi Kravitz

Nick Sayer @Frank Buss SD cards are actually easier to get ahold of.

Frank Bustrue

Nick Sayer You can get them at Walgreens.

Morning.Star Ok fair enough, I wondered @Sophi Kravitz

Sophi Kravitz ah, the anonymous reveal!

Peter McCloud @Nick Sayer I like the concept,I could see Orthus being good for ITAR data being transferred.

Sophi Kravitz @Jeremy Gilbert post a link

Sophi Kravitz and then I have to run

Jeremy Gilbert https://hackaday.io/project/20470-makernet

Yann Guidon / YGDES

Sophi: it seems that the hackaday.io site has plenty of bugs when it comes to the contest :-/

castvee8 Did I miss that answer Sohpi?

Jeremy Gilbert thanks. just shot the video and rewrote the front page today. super frazzled. :)

Nick Sayer @Peter McCloud That was one of the first things I thought of - people are worried about bringing data across borders nowadays.

Frank Buss all data is in the cloud nowadays

Nick Sayer With Orthrus, you just have two people on different flights carry each card through.

Frank Buss then use a passphrase to generate a key

Nick Sayer The humans are the weak link for passwords/passphrases. They can be coerced into giving them up with rubber hoses or waterboarding.

Peter McCloud @Frank Buss While that's mostly true, sometimes it's difficult to get a secure network connection setup due to buecracy and an encrypted drive gets physically mailed.

Frank Buss ok, I didn't think of this :-)

anfractuosity that sd card project could be good for doing one time pad things too, like insert one sd card full of random data, and it encrypts the other sd card

castvee8 Sophi-did I miss the answer to the question of not being allowed to submit a project made before the contest begins? too much broken traffic on other topics-did not see an answer....

Sophi Kravitz @Jeremy Gilbert nice video

Nick Sayer Going through customs with an SD card full of garbage... you could tell the customs folks exactly how the data is encrypted and they'd still be stymied without the other card.

Sophi Kravitz hey everyone can we get some feedback on https://hackaday.io/project/20470-makernet

Rene Just browsed through the rthrus project... very nice!

Frank Buss @Jeremy Gilbert so your project is like littleBits?

Shulie Tornel I think projects that have not ntered the prize before, and are old, can be entered in. Correct me if I'm wrong, Sophi

davedarko @castvee8 - it was a bug that allowed old projects to be posted and is now fixed, as @Sophi Kravitz says

Frank Buss @Nick Sayer with a two-part key it would be the same

castvee8 what is an old project? one made a week before the contest started???

Nick Sayer makernet... very nice. When I was a child, there was a similar thing, but it was with individual discrete components. This lets you build a lot more interesting stuff.

Shulie Tornel For example, if someone has been working on a project for two years, have never entered it into the prize before can submit it into the prize.

Jeremy Gilbert @Frank Buss A little bit, I guess. Its hard to get Littlebits to do really cool things. And they don't connect very well. I like them but I want something that can be used in sophisticated projects too.

Yann Guidon / YGDES But since the bug was solved AFTER the entries were submitted, these entries should still be allowed, right ?

Sophi Kravitz @Shulie Tornel is correct, if it hasn;t been submitted before, it can be

castvee8 Ok, so an old project means that it was already entered and cannot be re-entered.....if its ten years old and never entered then thats ok?

Shulie Tornel Yes

Sophi Kravitz @Yann Guidon / YGDES no, the official rules state that you must make a new project

Jeremy Gilbert @Nick Sayer Me too. My fear is that the next generation of makers is going to be expecting things to be well abstracted and clean. Software is gettng that way all of the time. I want them to feel that complex hardware that does more than just turn on a light is within reach.

Yusuf Khan I did enter the prize without creating a new page. Misread the rules, thought that only applied to previous prize entries

castvee8 Thank you..That was the clarification I was asking about.

Morning.Star makernet: nice, but that a lot of hardware for a buton.

Shulie Tornel You only need to make a new project page if you submitted an to Prize previous years, but did not make it to finalist.

Shulie Tornel "Existing projects, or projects that were entered in previous presentations of The Hackaday Prize but did not advance to at least the Semifinal round, are eligible for submission as entries in this Contest with the following restrictions:

A new project page must be created."

Sophi Kravitz @Jeremy Gilbert I like your project, looks neatly done.

Yann Guidon / YGDES Sophi: this creates a very confusing situation

Morning.Star HaD way too slow... :-)

davedarko well the bug seems to be fixed and I could still post my first project from 2014 to the 2017 price, seems legit

Sophi Kravitz There are a few products out there that aim to be pluggable modular electronics

davedarko "A new project page" - is that a log or a new project?

castvee8 k on https://hackaday.io/project/20470-makernet

Sophi Kravitz after that is done we can talk about other things

Sophi Kravitz thanks :)

Shulie Tornel I give it a perfect 5/7

Jeremy Gilbert @Sophi Kravitz Yes, this is in a similiar vien to Little Bits (except that its more generalized), and Modulo (except that its portable) and probably a few other things.

Sophi Kravitz @Jeremy Gilbert is this going to be entered into the Best Product round?

Shulie Tornel I love that video

Nick Sayer I think the building block thing is a great concept. My one issue is that it is a litle bit of a developmental dead end. If you use it to make something cool, and want to make a "permanent" version of it (without the building block machinery), you have to start over.

davedarko tough one. big effort. but I prefer modules added to existing boards and modules more.

Jeremy Gilbert Its a concept right now. I'm trying to see I should keep developing it. So i'm submitting it to the concept round.

davedarko tough to start "another" platform

Sophi Kravitz it depends on who you're making this for though, if it is for people to "just learn and get inspired" then it serves a purpose

Sophi Kravitz If it is a prototyping platform, then less so

Nick Sayer @Sophi Kravitz Agreed.

Sophi Kravitz @Jeremy Gilbert good idea- thanks for sharing!

Shulie Tornel Thanks, Jeremy

Jeremy Gilbert @davedarko The mainboard is a clone of the Adafruit Feather. And i'm working on a Teensy compatable version. I'm not convinced yet if this is supposed to be a product or just an cool project.

Sophi Kravitz OK- now we can talk about the bug

Jeremy Gilbert thanks all for the feedback.

Nick Sayer I see folks put things like Teensies into products and say, "Everytime someone puts an Arduino into a shipping product, an angel gnaws off her wings."

Neil K. Sheridan I thought it was a good idea! Phew how many modules will u make tho!!

Jack Laidlaw I think Makernet would be a great learning tool, for school age kids, a bit like electronic lego's with a bit of coding.

Nick Sayer @Jack Laidlaw +1

Sophi Kravitz If you have a project that ws submitted into one of the previous rounds, you must start a new project page even if the project is the same or similar. If your previous project was a semifinalist, then you must create a completely new project concept.

Jeremy Gilbert@Jack Laidlaw yes, thats my hope. good for learning. But i actually think many of my own projects could use it.

Neil K. Sherida@Jack Laidlaw +2

Sophi Kravitz And if you were trapped by the bug, you have all weekend to quickly make a new project page :D

Morning.Star yes thanks jeremy. good luck ok, HaD 2 slow

Jeremy Gilbert it just makes the integration of things so much simpler since your brain can focus on the interface and the case, etc.

Jeremy Gilbert

@Morning.Star thanks!

Jack Laidlaw @Jeremy Gilbert Yeah there are other possibilities too but in my opinion I think the educational factor would begreat.

Jeremy Gilbert @Jack Laidlaw Thats good feedback. Maybe education should be the target then. That would work well for me since i have a school-age daughter But I do see a lot of people at my local hackspace who are frustrated they can't get past the breadboarding stage and I wonder if this helps them too.

Yann Guidon / YGDES "And if you were trapped by thebug, you have all weekend to quickly make a new project page :D"

that's not fair to all the people that are trapped by the bug and are not on the channel.

That's ....

Sophi Kravitz I have emailed everyone more than twice

Sophi Kravitz so if you're not on the channel, you should have gotten an email

Yann Guidon / YGDES it's like "just read the rules and don't trust what teh website says"

Sophi Kravitz there were 23 projects

Neil K. Sheridan @Jeremy Gilbert the clear mounting strategy idea is great!

Jack Laidlaw @Jeremy Gilbert I'm not telling you what to do you are right it would be great for hackerspaces too. People with limited hardware knowlegde sometimes struggle with a starting point.

davedarko so why can I add 3 y/o projects to the prize then? @Sophi Kravitz

Sophi Kravitz was it a previous prize entry?

davedarko no, but since I would need to add a new project page?

castvee8 My question was in a comment concerning projects put up before the contest began. Not about previous entries. Davedarko was trying to tell me but way too much crosstalk about a topic three questions prior.

Sophi Kravitz if it was not a previous prize entry, you can enter it at any time

Yann Guidon / YGDES if the bug is solved then how come I still have many "old" projects listed as participating ?

Sophi Kravitz projects may only be entered once

Jeremy Gilbert @Jack Laidlaw Thanks. Really appreciate the thoughts. :)

Sophi Kravitz @Yann Guidon / YGDES // goes to look

castvee8 And that has nothing to do with the "bug" being discussed?

Yann Guidon / YGDES

Sophi I can send you the list

Sophi Kravitz @Yann Guidon / YGDES all of your projects are entered in the 2017 prize, not the 2016 and 2017

Sophi Kravitz @castvee8 what's your question exactly?

castvee8 my fingers are getting very tired........I think it was asked and answered....I hope.

Sophi Kravitz @Shulie Tornel and I are jumping off this chat !

Shulie Tornel Thanks everyone!

Jack Laidlaw @Jeremy Gilbert No problem, Might be nice to include a simple circuit diagram with each module then you could really show how it works on a hardware level if you went down the educational road.

davedarko I think you're fine, castvee8

Sophi Kravitz if you have anymore questions, please email prize@hackaday.com

Neil K. Sheridan thanks for interesting chat!

davedarko great stuff!

Sophi Kravitz and of course, feel free to hang out and talk some more

Sophi Kravitz ;)

Morning.Star thanks :-)

Shayna Bye y'all!

Jack Laidlaw bye !!

Jeremy Gilbert Thanks for the advise. @Sophi Kravitz sorry for crashing the meeting. I didn't realize there was another event on right now.

Rene Thanks!

davedarko @castvee8 - if your project wasn't posted to 2016, 2015 or 2014, then you're fine

Nick Sayer

Back to the salt mines. Bye everyone

castvee8

Yann-did you figure out what you wanted to know?were you affected by this bug thing?

Yann Guidon / YGDES Sophi: OK, I agree on this, what I am still unsure is : the entries MUST be created after the start of the contest

castvee8 Thanks davedarko..

davedarko nopes

davedarko sure, castvee8

castvee8 That was my question as well Yann

davedarko @Yann Guidon / YGDES -they only have to be not added to another round before

Sophi Kravitz @Yann Guidon / YGDES the entries do NOT need to be created after the start of the contest

Yann Guidon cast: i'm still unsure

Sophi Kravitz the entries can be created at any time

Sophi Kravitz haha me too

Sophi Kravitz byeeee

anfractuosity thanks

davedarko if it wasn't in 2014,2015 or 2016, date of creation doesn't matter

Yann Guidon / YGDES Sophi : thank you ! at lasta clear answer !

castvee8 thats the answer I was looking for davedarko..

ken conrad 'previous round' being a previous year of HaD Prize

Jack Laidlaw If only I was allowed to enter my unborn child, I'm sure when it's born in september it's going to change the world.

davedarko boom

Discussions