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Gearbox Hack Weekend Boulder

Are you an Android developer? Here's an event for you!

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This weekend, the hacker extraordinaires from GearBox are hosting "Hack Weekend Boulder" in downtown Boulder, Colo. This event will run from 10:30AM on July 24th until 10PM on July 25th and caters towards Android developers. So what's this "hack weekend" all about? Glad you asked!

GearBox is a Boulder-based start up that works with consumer electronics companies and developers to bring phone controlled open devices to the market. With this in mind, they created the "Hack Weekend" event to bring Android developers together to play around with their new Smart Ball APIs. These cool new "toys" (I almost feel bad calling them that) allow you to control a ball via Bluetooth from your Android 2.1+ based phone. Once you have control of the ball, what you do with it is up to you.

The event will give you the opportunity to experiment with the Smart Ball, hang out with some like-minded hackers, and possibly win a Smart Ball of your own! The top app may also get mentioned at the Techstars Investor Day in front of a whole slew on venture capitalists. All you need to participate is a computer and an Android 2.1+ based phone. GearBox will be providing free food, free beer, and free Red Bull - awesome!


Comments 28 comments

  • coopersnout / about 14 years ago / 3

    Man, Boulder must be the Hobby Hacker Capital of World to have so many awesome companies pop up all over the place. If I had the chance to move over, I would in a second. Plus, free Red Bull is about the coolest three words ever to be spoken.

    • go Boulder, the new silicon valley of OSHW based companies!
      This little fella would be great for augmented reality applications, just add your favorite marker flavor(IR,Color,2d bar-code variants) =)

    • MomboMan / about 14 years ago / 1

      Woa slow down there dill1233. Yes Boulder has Sparcfun but not much else. Young homeless tree-huggers pester you night and day for money and or food. The police are the worst I've ever seen, they have cameras on the traffic lights which ticket you for running a red. The traffic itself is ALWAYS slow from the 8 million Subaru's driving 5 - 10 miles an hour under the speed limit. Urg! I gotta go take my meds.

      • Chad Oliver / about 14 years ago / 1

        Sorry, you get ticketed for running a red light? You do realize that running a red light is illegal? That's like complaining that you get arrested for theft.

      • gearboxian / about 14 years ago / 1

        Coming from Fort Collins I was not a fan of Boulder at all (big college rivalry). I still think CU sucks but it's definitely a killer spot for tech startups! ;)

      • Call me crazy, but Boulder is one of the most chill places I have ever lived. There is practically no violence or crime (except for people stealing bikes), there are tons of bike paths all over town and I worry more about people judging me for forgetting to bring my recyclable bag to the grocery store than cops hassling me.
        ...and it seems this crazy town is attracting a lot of young tech savvy people interested in creating new and innovative things.

  • These look awesome. I really want one.
    I wanted to find out more, so I googled "smart balls" <--- DO NOT DO THIS!!!

  • Yvan256 / about 14 years ago / 2

    The first person to make a real-life Marble Madness with a ball that completes the level by itself wins.

  • lostangel556 / about 14 years ago / 2

    Anyone else thinking of making something to make it act like those ball bearings from Aeon Flux?
    You could use the bluetooth connection as an range finder and then have it navigate its way to the source (depending on the ball's hardware)

  • Heef / about 14 years ago / 1

    OMG! I want to build it, and now, OMG OMG. It makes my nips hard! (so to speak)

  • Cool Cap Engineer2 / about 14 years ago / 1

    This is awesome, but what are you using for the balls to move?

    • gearboxian / about 14 years ago / 1

      Check a few posts back. I like to call it the hamster ball technique :)

  • Conrthomas / about 14 years ago / 1

    How exactly do the "Smart Balls" move? They look fully enclosed, and the only way I can imagine is an off balance weight floating inside the sphere...

    • gearboxian / about 14 years ago / 1

      you got it! that plus a very complex control system

  • Conrthomas / about 14 years ago / 1

    Given half a day, Sparkfun customers can come up with an entirely new project concept. Amazing.

  • Back in 2005 (I was an intern working at university lab) one of our projects involved the use of small robots in augmented reality environments in order to provide some physical feedback to the scene... We used IR back then (under controlled lighting conditions) but we had no where near the freedom of movement that these guys seem to provide with these spheres
    I know some professors who would definitely like to play with these "toys" =)

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