Working in a room full of machines you would think a person’s personality might be as stagnant as one, but this group of four could bring a bucket of bolts come to life with their jokes and laughter. Carson Doll, Tony Golbeck, Nathan Ord and Michael Hammond went to an event called Huskie Hack as a group of four to try and make a project of their own in only 24 hours.

The event was held on Nov. 4, where all they could bring some supplies and their brains to make their project come to life. The group was given limited amount of time to come up with their idea, only about a month prior to the event. Their main project wasn’t their first idea though, they did have another one, which caused some trouble.

“Our main plan fell through, so we had about only three days to come up with a our project” all four said.

Their first project was a very unique idea, but it didn’t end up like they hoped.

“Our previous project was turning a VCR into a toaster, and that didn’t work, so we built something else” Hammond said.

The group came up with their main project called the “Better Weather Buddy” the name came from the fact it was a 3D printed orange bunny that dealt with the weather, they also made a second one that was a blue cylinder.

“Better Weather Buddy was a small device that contacted weather services and analyzed weather statistics for the next 48 hours and determined whether or not there would be symptoms in the forecast that would cause the user a migraine or arthritis,” Hammond said.

To come up with such an unique idea it took plenty of thinking and planning.

“We did a lot of looking online and eventually came to the conclusion that this is what we wanted to do” Doll said.

It wasn’t always perfect though, the group did run into some difficulties/troubles.

“Figuring out the wiring was a pain, it took about two hours to do that” Golbeck said.

With a bunch of groups there from a bunch of different high schools, the environment could’ve been a bit intimidating.

“They were all nerds, so we knew we were going to win,” Hammond said jokingly.

The group overall had the same perspective as Golbeck.

“I felt like the whole vibe was just a bunch of people doing their own thing together and then potentially getting a prize at the end. There was like no real competitive atmosphere,” Golbeck said.

The event was a different type of competitiveness

“It wasn’t a competitive like you wanting to beat someone else at what you were doing, it was just you wanted to excel in your project and that was all that mattered,” Hammond said.

            As well as the fun, there were some funny things that happened to the group.

“Nathan fried a computer,” Golbeck said, followed by a lot of laughter by the group.

“Fried a very expensive computer,” Hammond said.

Besides the fried computer, the group had an interesting toast.

“And of course the soylent toast, presented by yours truly, Carson here with a very well put together speech,” Golbeck said.

At the event, a group of kids including the group of 4 huddled around for a soylent toast. Soylent isn’t something that tastes very good.

“It’s a very disgusting meal supplement. It tastes like vomit and that’s what some of us did,” Hammond said.

Back to the project, when asked if it was the swaying of judges or the product who won it for them the group replied with “Both, it was a combined effort of ingenuity and persuasiveness” Hammond said.

“I think the concept was really just persuasive on it’s own. Before we even had it done, people would ask what we were doing and when would explain it to them they would react like “Oh wow! That’s really cool idea” it really wasn’t that hard to sell, I don’t think” Doll said.

The group of four ended up winning in the health category of the convention. Their prize was $150 arduino kit for each of them. As for the future, the group thinks they might be doing events like this later down the road. The four of them showed the potential to be quite successful if they end up doing more events like this.

“We’re award winning hackers, keep in mind” Doll said.