HackLab 2014

It’s that time of year again. HackLab dawned on us early this year, but we felt February was such an in-between month, we could do with a good day of hacking to get us ready and raring in anticipation of HackFu 2014!

With three awesome projects, four powerful motors, a room full of hackers and as much caffeine and pizza to fuel a supercar, what could go wrong?

Reusing last year’s strategy of a new building, this time we opted to house the event in the new Basingstoke offices! We gathered together four ideas that people wanted to hack on, and came out with a great line-up. Sadly, one of the projects fell at the first hurdle, with technical difficulties discovered early on in the day, and so it was that we hung our heads with remorse at losing such a promising project. However, the other three projects went ahead full steam, and with a surprise leader in the project popularity contest…

• “Rob’s JaegerBomber” Rob had always wanted to build a quadcopter, since he was a little kid watching robot wars and saw how aerial attack had been completely ignored, and finally it was his chance to build one!
• “Matt’s Hardware Project” Details were sketchy on this project, but the idea was to develop a small hardware project that could actually lead to manufacture, keeping the costs and so on low, whilst still maintaining the cool was a tricky balancing act.
• “Stu’s Harddisk Hacking” The surprise entry that garnered the most attention was Stuart’s attempts to rip the back off a harddisk and get to its juicy firmware to see how it worked, and possibly, to coax it to reveal it’s innermost secrets to him. Whilst there’s follow up work required, when the boot sequence for a hard drive flashed past everyone cheered!

The day was filled with the sounds of hackers tapping away trying to figure out what they need to know to complete the projects, whilst munching down on snacks, pizza and drinking a prodigious quantity of tasty beverages.

Will the quadcopter fly? What is the mysterious hardware project? Will Stu gain NSA-like powers over your hard drives? Watch this blogspace…

[ For those of you wondering, Rob’s Beer Fridge is fully functional but not yet well-dressed. Keep your eyes peeled for an upcoming event where Beer Fridge 2: Re-Fridgerator will be making an appearance. ]