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Hack A Day Prize is a Trip To Space (Video)

Last month, at Maker Faire Bay Area 2014, Timothy Lord spotted a guy wearing a very large piece of headgear that included two crossed wrenches. The guy turned out to be Mike Szczys, Managing Editor of hackaday.com, which says, "The Hackaday Prize will send one person into space for building the next evolution of hardware." That's certainly of interest to the hardware hacker/maker crowd. How they're going to arrange the space flight (probably one of those "just above the atmosphere" hops) isn't specified, but even so the contest is an interesting idea, and the Hack A Day site seems to have some interest hacks and tutorials on it. So go ahead and enter the contest -- and don't forget to take your camera with you on your flight into space, because we'll want to see pictures! (Alternate Video Link)

34 comments

  1. Lolol by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    How they're going to arrange the space flight (probably one of those "just above the atmosphere" hops) isn't specified

    SpaceX hopefully as Virgin is going to be defrauding people with "Not actually into space spaceflights".

    In other news I'm offering trips into space in a cardboard box.. I just re-defined 'space' to mean any atoms that might have been out there at some point.

    1. Re:Lolol by viperidaenz · · Score: 1

      Or you could just take the cash equivalent.

    2. Re:Lolol by khallow · · Score: 1

      as Virgin is going to be defrauding people with "Not actually into space spaceflights".

      If it's above 100 km, it's space by definition.

    3. Re:Lolol by Rhacman · · Score: 1

      This.

      The rational way to approach winning this prize would be to ask yourself if you'd buy a ticket to space if you had the cash value already in your savings account. If you'd spend your hard earned money on anything other than a brief flight "up real high" then take the cash equivalent.

      Even if they cover the taxes that you'll be responsible for paying on the value of the flight, I'd rather be filling out tax forms knowing that some of that cash was still in the bank.

      --
      Account -> Discussions -> Disable Sigs
    4. Re:Lolol by mythosaz · · Score: 1

      You must be a lot of fun at your own birthday parties, asking "Why didn't you just give me cash" every time you open a present.

      I've had all sorts of wonderful experiences doing things that were gifts from others that I wouldn't normally have bought myself.

      Yes, it'd be nice to say, oh, I dunno, buy a friggin' house instead of go near space, but it's a terrible attitude overall to just want the full cash value of every prize.

    5. Re:Lolol by mythosaz · · Score: 1

      Oh yeah. Totally cut and dry.
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K...

    6. Re:Lolol by viperidaenz · · Score: 1

      Not many people offer cash equivalents when they give your a birthday present

    7. Re:Lolol by gl4ss · · Score: 1

      i'm just giving trips to office space. you can even rent some for few hundred bucks / month.

      --
      world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
  2. And all you have to do to win... by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 1

    ...is built a working man-carrying spaceship.

    Off you go!

    --
    systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
  3. I'd like to buy a vowel by tepples · · Score: 2

    Somehow the name "Mike Szczys", like so many Slavic or Welsh names, reminds me of an old article in The Onion titled "Clinton Deploys Vowels to Bosnia".

    1. Re:I'd like to buy a vowel by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Who the hell is Timothy Lord? He doesn't have a Wikipedia page, just some self-promotion crap on Facebook and Google doesn't find him either.

    2. Re:I'd like to buy a vowel by tepples · · Score: 1

      Who the hell is Timothy Lord? He doesn't have a Wikipedia page

      That's because of the guideline about people notable for only one thing. Wikipedia's article about Slashdot mentions him.

    3. Re:I'd like to buy a vowel by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oh its that nobody who posts most of the dupe & advert slashdot stories, explains everything.

  4. Residents of these area are specifically excluded by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Residents of these area are specifically excluded from entry: Italy, Quebec, Cuba, Iran, Myanmar, North Korea, Sudan, Syria

    WTF?

    Ok, here is the full quote:

    Residents of these area are specifically excluded from entry: Italy, Quebec, Cuba, Iran, Myanmar, North Korea, Sudan, Syria, or any jurisdiction where the Prize would be restricted or prohibited by law.

    But seriously, Italians prohibited from going to space?

  5. Re: Residents of these area are specifically exclu by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Italy has crazy laws about competitions. Most international competitions exclude Italy for that reason. Sorry.

  6. Shit, not again by frovingslosh · · Score: 3, Insightful

    We have already discussed this. The cost of a trip to space is so high that the average guy can't afford to win it and (as has happened before) would have to decline it, otherwise the taxes on the "prize" would ruin you.

    --
    I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
    1. Re:Shit, not again by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Shit, not again

      Not more unapplicaple complaints when there are plenty of valid ones to be had...
      They calculated the tax into the prize terms... they did at least do that much... what they don't seem to realize is they designed the entire contest, deadlines and all, for their middle-class college student audience... pretty much locking out anyone who is struggling really hard to make it into the middle-class. They need to check their privilege, but they are awesome folks. It's a great first step! no one else is legitimately doing contests such as this, and as much as they accidentally got that one thing wrong (being out of touch with the financially struggling hacker), they got a lot about the contest right that no other company ever has to this point. So kudos to them.

    2. Re:Shit, not again by Trogre · · Score: 1

      Yes indeed, "not again". The US system of taxes on prizes is utterly ludicrous. No way should the recipient of a prize be liable for any kind of payment. Tax the prizes if you must, but that will be payable by the organization that issues the prize.

      And don't get me started on a slightly OT rant about the retarded situation that permits US mobile carriers to charge customers to receive SMS messages.

      --
      "Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
    3. Re:Shit, not again by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oh get fucked. If you're too broke to buy $50 worth of micro-controllers you shouldn't be wasting your money on speculative shit like hackathon contest entries. Solve your earnings problem like a self sufficient adult human instead of whining about how there are no financial opportunities available to a stuggling hacker trying to break in to the middle class, because I know that to be 100% bullshit for a fact.

      There are government financed institutions called "colleges" which pander to your sense of victimhood nicely: Pell grants, need-based scholarships, and financial aid out the ass.

      If your problem is you weren't middle class before I have zero fucking sympathy. My family has been slipping out of middle class slowly for over a decade. Partially because the prices we pay for things like housing, electricity, food, and education are all subsidized for people who manage to fail to negotiate a reasonable salary for themselves. I know people with high school diplomas who pull $90K-$200K so if you want to roll up on a contest and play some entitlement-card pity party please feel free to shove it.

      If your parents are broke and you're too young to work: sorry your parents were such epic failures. Watch some TED talks, start a kickstarter, go door to door with a 5 gallon bucket raising money for a high altitude balloon, join a club, collect kellogs box tops, return cans for a deposit, mow some yards, sell some lemonade, play online poker. There are a million ways for some little shit to scratch together two nickels and buy a raspberry pi, an FTDI cable, and an arduino pro mini. If you can't manage that, you don't have what it takes to do anything useful with them once you have them. Please stop calling yourself a hacker. It's embarassing.

    4. Re:Shit, not again by lazy+genes · · Score: 0

      You forgot to tell him to shut the fuck up and just ignore reality like the rest of us. Go out and get a proper education and legally rob people like the rest of us. He should be so happy that we live in the nuclear age and we practically have free energy to burn right now. He should pump up his fake ego like the rest of us that will die before they realize that we have no way to solve the nuke waste problem. Who the fuck cares about anything but a good blowjob anyway. Be happy that we can steal energy from the next generations so we can pump up our fake egos.

    5. Re: Shit, not again by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What's the fucking problem with taking stuff from the future generations? What have the future generations ever done for us? Screw'em!

    6. Re: Shit, not again by lazy+genes · · Score: 0

      Pisses me off, We should invest all the energy and natural resources we have left and build a time machine to go into the future and slap them.

  7. Re: Residents of these area are specifically exclu by mythosaz · · Score: 1

    Canadians will have to answer a skills test.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S...

  8. This prize could financially ruin you by frovingslosh · · Score: 2

    Generally, Birthday gifts are not taxable. But winning this "prize" could financially ruin you, at least if you live in the U.S.A., since you would have to pay taxes on it. Federal tax and, in most states, state and maybe even a local tax. We have already had someone who "won" a trip to space who had to decline it since there was no way that he could afford the taxes on it's supposed value. Even the cost of a sub-orbital trip is a lot more than I could afford to pay the taxes on, and I expect that many others feel the same way. So if you are going to offer a prize like this then you should either offer a cash equivalent (which you can pretty much expect most people would choose out of necessity, even though they might only get to keep about half of it) or sweeten it with the trip plus enough cash to cover all taxes (including the taxes on the extra cash).

    --
    I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
    1. Re:This prize could financially ruin you by viperidaenz · · Score: 1

      And it's got 11 monitors as well, so you can monitor your cash while you're monitoring the tax on your monitors.

    2. Re: This prize could financially ruin you by szczys · · Score: 1

      That's a good point, which is why the grand prize includes consideration for taxes (read the official rules)

  9. Re: Residents of these area are specifically exclu by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    but they don't have to pay taxes on lotteries or most prize winning games... Not sure if this falls under that.

  10. I'm looking forward to... by Dishwasha · · Score: 1

    The plethora of "free energy" device submissions. Heck, all the YouTube video work is already done!

  11. This prize could financially ruin you by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Yo i heard you needed some cash for your tax. so we got some tax cash to pay your space cash tax for space!

  12. News for ...who? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "and the Hack A Day site seems to have some interest hacks and tutorials on it."

    You say that as if readers of Slashdot aren't already familiar with the site.

    1. Re:News for ...who? by viperidaenz · · Score: 1

      To be fair, anyone who reads hackaday would have known about this competition over a month ago, since entires started on the 28th of April.

      It's been 6 weeks now and there is only 8 weeks left until entires close.

  13. This prize could financially ruin you by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Did you read the competition rules? That's exactly what they are offering as prices. If you take the trip they cover taxes also. You can also take the cash if you want to.