Get Ready! Terrible Ideas is this 8th – 10th of December ✨

Make something half-baked with friends in two days.

Terrible Ideas happen everywhere – from pottery to programming. This event is a challenge to create the most terrible, awful, brilliant ideas you can think of! From robot-driven tattoo guns and soleless Jandals or marmite flavoured fudge to the world’s most professionally bad D&D module, join us in a celebration of failure, creativity, and stupid, terrible decisions.

This December:

Tāmaki Makaurau

University of Auckland

Alright, let’s do this one last time. The Terrible Ideas Hackathon returns for a second time in 2023 to Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland! Come join us for a weekend of frenetic hacking at the University of Auckland’s Maker Space

London

Imperial College London

London’s first-ever Terrible Ideas Event is kicking off this year! Join in at Imperial for a weekend of fun and truly awful Ideas. Registrations will open in October

Sydney

UNSW Sydney

Sydney is kicking off with their first ever Terrible Ideas Hack this year! Sydney is a city renowned for having people in it, and those people will be doing this event. How much more should I write here?

Whangārei

Questionable Research Labs

Your Funeral Pinata might put the fun back in funerals but is it terrible enough to beat the toilet with an automated bottom wiping arm? Join us in a celebration of Terrible Ideas! This Terrible Ideas Hack is rated G: “Good for kids to attend”!

HACK   TRY   BUTCHER   SLASH   CRAFT   FIX   DECONSTRUCT   CAUSE CLIMATE CHANGE   CROCHET   BREAK   LASER CUT   REPAIR   ROLEPLAY   DESTROY   IDEATE   STOP CLIMATE CHANGE   TATTOO   EXAMPLE TEXT

HACK   TRY   BUTCHER   SLASH   CRAFT   FIX   DECONSTRUCT   CAUSE CLIMATE CHANGE   CROCHET   BREAK   LASER CUT   REPAIR   ROLEPLAY   DESTROY   IDEATE   STOP CLIMATE CHANGE   TATTOO   EXAMPLE TEXT

HACK   TRY   BUTCHER   SLASH   CRAFT   FIX   DECONSTRUCT   CAUSE CLIMATE CHANGE   CROCHET   BREAK   LASER CUT   REPAIR   ROLEPLAY   DESTROY   IDEATE   STOP CLIMATE CHANGE   TATTOO   EXAMPLE TEXT

Terrible Ideas Hackathon is a two-day adventure in creating strange things

Hand-drawn scribble: "Worth Reading!"

More About the Weekend

I don’t have much experience making things, or I’m not sure I’ll be the right fit for this event. Should I still come?

Absolutely – bring your friends too (but make sure they register)! Whether you’re gluing cardboard together, developing algorithms, or writing a 5,000-word Shrek fanfiction, we’d love to have you on board. If this is your first time and you’ve got no idea what to do, we’ll have an awesome group of volunteers and a great community who will help you have a good time. Terrible Ideas Hackathon event are open to as many people as possible, whether you’re a student, alumni, member of the public, or otherwise. Check out the pages for specific events for more info on who’s invited!

What should I try and get out of the event?

We hope first and foremost that you’ll have a chance to make some friends, learn new things, and have a bit of fun. While Terrible Hack is a celebration of bad ideas, in order to make things you’ll likely have to think about what makes an idea “good” or “bad” and learn a bit on how to practically apply your skills to solve problems.

While other hackathons are often competitive, Terrible Hack is not – we won’t have any (serious) prizes. This is intentional, and we hope that it’ll give you the opportunity to be a bit more ambitious in your choices of projects than you might be normally. In the end, whether you finish your project or not it’s only a couple dozen hours – two days! There’s a lot to gain from trying something crazy and not much to lose by failing, so take this opportunity to take chances, make mistakes, and get messy!

What should I expect from the weekend?

We’re excited to say that for over 50% of you, this will be your first time participating in a hackathon. This is awesome, and if you’re one of the many who’ve decided to give this a shot, go you! In the simplest sense, a hackathon is a challenge or event where people come together to make things or solve problems. While traditionally these events are focused on technology, the Terrible Ideas Hackathon is broadly about making anything, be it through code, paintbrush, craft knife, written word, video, music or otherwise.

Through the event, we’ll help people pair up into teams (these can be any size, but we recommend 3-10). From there, you’ll pick something that you want to make – we’ll have lots of ideas swimming around, and you’re welcome to bring your own. For the Terrible Ideas Hackathon, we’ll also have a few “Diversifiers” – suggestions and themes that you can use if you want a place to start.

Will we be working in teams? Is there a max team size?

Generally we strongly encourage everyone to work in teams during the weekend! You’re welcome to bring friends and make a team with them, but many people will be forming teams for the first time on Friday night and we’ll help you do this.

There is no maximum or minimum team size (anywhere from 1 to 100 is fine). We tend to find that teams work well up to 10 people.

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