Welcome to the second edition of Random Hacks of Awesomeness!
If you haven’t already, be sure to check out our first RHOA post from last week HERE.
1. Challenge Link (HackWestern)
A finalist project that went on to win Best Azure Hack, Most Creative App, and Best Pebble Hack at HackWestern – Challenge Link is one of the most polished hack to come out of last weekend. The team made up of Umar Azhar, Cathy Chen, Andrew Lawrence, and Albert Tai made it crazily simple to plan and participate in location-based challenges.
“It gets even cooler when Pebble gets involved. With your Pebble smartwatch, stay on the move and get the clues right to your wrist. Track your progress, and best of all: feel your progress with vibrations scaled to your distance from the destination.” – Challenge Link Team
2. Pokemon Rift (SpartaHack)
After discovering the availability of 3D models of Pokemon characters online, this team went on a mission to bring this classic gem of a game to the realm of virtual reality.
Utilizing the power of Unity 3D and a combo of hardware consisting of the Oculus Rift, Thalmic Myo, and Leap Motion, users get to choose between 1 of 4 starter Pokemon before getting whisked away to a grassy field to commence training as Pokemon Masters.
We absolutely loved the realistic Pokéball throwing action, which helped propel this project to 3rd place and also the Funniest/Most Creative Hack.
(ChallengePost Submission + Video Demo)
3. Autobahn (HackPSU)
Frustrated with the lack of applications allowing for instant video steaming, Carter and Jared from Drexel University created Autobahn. It is a desktop application which allows you to stream local video files directly to any browser via WebSockets. Check out our recording of their live demo below!
4. Etch and Sketch (SteelHacks)
Roisin, Anthony, and Derrike were inspired by a childhood toy for their award winning hack at SteelHacks. Based off the Etch A Sketch, their hack breathed new life into lineography (drawing without lifting the tool that is being used to draw) with the help of the Oculus Rift and Thalmic Myo.
This hack heightened the interactivity behind a simple drawing concept with the use of rotating hand gestures to control where lines are formed and the ability to change colors and start or stop lines based on various built in hand positions!
5. KinectSentryGun (HackPSU)
In the words of the team behind this hack, KinectSentryGun is a “reverse engineered Nerf machine gun, powered by Arduino and an Xbox Kinect”.
Crossing the path of this sentry will result in getting shot by a Nerf dart, having your photo taken, and being ousted on Twitter. The team also won Best Use of Blockchain’s API through a web app that allows trespassers to pay into a virtual wallet in order to clear their name.
We would definitely recommend checking out their ChallengePost submission linked below for a full breakdown of how they made this hack possible!
That’s it for this week’s roundup, be sure to check back next week for more Random Hacks of Awesomeness!
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[…] Update: Random Hacks of Awesomeness #2 now published! Read it HERE. […]