The best thing about working at isobar was getting to spend time coming up with ideas for new things and turning them into reality. isobar South Africa hosted 9 NOWLAB events and hackathons since December 2014.
This is a collection of my favourite events.
The Gif Gun - ISOBAR HAPPY HACK
The Gif Gun was the winning project at isobar South Africa's first NOWLAB hackathon in December 2014. It consists of a Raspberry Pi, USB power supply, HD projector and a mouse housed in a modified toy gun chassis. The Gif Gun lets you project animated gifs onto any surface by simply aiming it and pulling the trigger. A crosshair is constantly projected while the unit is powered up to aid with aiming.
Maker Library Librarians for a day
We were invited by The Maker Library Network to be the librarians for a day. Our goal was to play with no end goal in mind. We took images uploaded with the #instanowlab hashtag, converted them into audio signals and ran them through various analog machines. The output from the machines was then captured and re encoded to form new images. These images were automatically printed and saved to be reuploaded.
Microsoft Open Data Hackathon
We were invited by The Maker Library Network to be the librarians for a day. Our goal was to play with no end goal in mind. We took images uploaded with the #instanowlab hashtag, converted them into audio signals and ran them through various analog machines. The output from the machines was then captured and re encoded to form new images. These images were automatically printed and saved to be reuploaded.
Off Grid Living Hackathon
At our Off Grid Living hackathon, myself and my team created a smart plug system called WATTSDOG that aims to incentivise people to help alleviate the strain South Africa's power grid is under. We created a working prototype of the smart plug that was controllable over the internet and mapped out an ecosystem that showed how our product could help make people and communities feel invested and accountable for power savings in their homes.
Hack for Love
At our Hack for love event, Me and my team created a USB app called OOH SB that let your computer feel some love. Upon insertion of the USB drive, a pop up would instruct the user to repeatedly insert and remove the USB drive from their computer to see what would come next. As the user inserted and removed the drive, an animation played on screen that increased in intensity and climaxed with a colourful kaleidoscopic animation.
