

Ask HN: Good Hackathon Prizes - brettcvz

We're bored with doing shiny iDevices or similar, and want to give away something more interesting.<p>What are some of the coolest hackathon prizes you've seen/thought of?
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liyanchang
In my opinion, there are three major tiers of gifts:

1\. Things that I want but could not have done before

These would be experiences or collectors items. Having lunch with Linus or PG
would be examples of this category; items like a box of AirBnB's ObamaO's.

2\. Things that I want and could get myself

For this one, there are two sub-categories: A. relevant B. shiny.

A. For a hackathon like photohackday, give away cameras. For something like
hackforchange, hire exec to do community service for me or donate an OLPC
under my name.

B. Give me something shiny. Galaxy Nexus, Kindle (though these are hard to
split among a group). Money also works though a bit awkward (unless it's a big
sum).

3\. Things I don't want

I know you think your service is super awesome, but please don't just give me
a pro account. Most of the times, I don't use it and therefore it's value to
me is 0. Give it away with something else. (nb: dropbox space, on the other
hand, would be valuable)

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alagu
Personally, I'd love any of the following: Arduino, Amarino, Hackable RC
Helicopter, Kickstarter funding. Basically gifts as platforms to hack more.

Other is allowing these hacks to be shown to people whom we respect and get
feedback. Eg: "What does Jack Dorsey think about my bit coin hack."

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joshu
So I'm insanely fond of these cheapo RC helicopters. Syma S107Gs etc.

What about a hackathon ABOUT those helicopters? Everyone gets helicopters,
there's lots of parts, and the winner does something cool?

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stewie2
wow, interesting. how hackable are they?

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joshu
They are pretty simplistic. Haven't tried to understand them.

One problem is that they are infrared and not radio.

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lejohnq
At <http://crowdhack.crowdconf.com/> the winner got a nepalese knife
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kukri>.

I really wanted to win that.

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semicolondev
Glad to know about Khukuri being gifted in SF CrowdHack - i'm from Kathmandu,
Nepal. There are other popular items from Nepal like Wooden/Brass Baghchal
boards, Buddha statue from Lumbini, Mt. Everest souvenir, Pokhara scenery,
Himalaya Range Scenery souvenir that'd be great gift to anyone who knows or
somehow heard about Nepal :)

Hope you could win one :)

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ssmc
Hackers are magpies; we like shiny things.

In lieu of that though, how about about PC parts? A sweet GPU/mobo/PSU would
be awesome.

Mechanical keyboards; good earphones etc.

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stewie2
I want a 3D printer, as a Prize.

