Below you can find answers to:
- What is Science Hack Day?
- What’s a Hack?
- Who is organizing Science Hack Day Antarctica?
- When should I show up? Do I need to participate or can I just observe?
- Do I need to show up with specific ideas, materials, or people to work with?
- What hardware/tools will be supplied?
- Are there prizes? What are the categories for prizes?
- Do Science Hack Day events take place elsewhere?
1. What is Science Hack Day?
Science Hack Day is an event where anyone excited about making weird, silly or serious things with science comes together in the same physical space to see what they can prototype within a few hours. Anyone who is excited about making things with science are welcome to attend – no experience in science or hacking is necessary, just an insatiable curiosity.
The mission of Science Hack Day is to get excited and make things with science! People organically form multidisciplinary teams over the course of a weekend: particle physicists team up with designers, marketers join forces with rocket scientists, writers collaborate with molecular biologists, and developers partner with school kids. By collaborating on focused tasks during this short period, small groups of hackers are capable of producing remarkable results.
There’s a video on the Temp Drive under the folder “12/2/18 Fun Event at Crary Library! Open Invite” that shows what the event is like.
2. What’s a Hack?
A hack is a quick solution to a problem – maybe not the most elegant solution, but often the cleverest.
3. Who is organizing Science Hack Day Antarctica?
The event is organized by volunteers: Ariel Waldman and Mike Lucibella.
4. When should I show up? Do I need to participate or can I just observe?
Show up at 11am on Sunday, December 2 so that you can get the run-down of what the event is all about. You are expected to participate, but you don’t need to know what you’re doing ahead of time – feel free just to show up.
5. Do I need to show up with specific ideas, materials, or people to work with?
Nope! You can just show up and figure it all out when you get here. That said, we encourage you to do rough brainstorming ahead of time if you’re able to, grab interesting datasets, and acquire any materials, electronics, tools, crafts, etc. you think you may want to play around with ahead of time. We do recommend that you bring your laptop, if you have one. Essentially, if you have no idea what you want to do ahead of time, don’t worry! And if you do know what you want to do, be prepared that your plan might change when you get here.
6. What hardware/tools will be supplied?
Science Hack Day is mostly a bring-your-own-tools/materials event, so if there’s something you know you’ll need ahead of time, bring it with you. We will have access to the Craft Room for a couple hours during the event. Ariel will bring some of her microscopes if you want to look at anything tiny. You can also use things from Skua for prototyping. No dumpster diving allowed, though.
7. Are there prizes? What are the categories for prizes?
Science Hack Day is a highly collaborative event where you can be part of a team or multiple teams if you choose. We do awards teams on the following categories, in addition to allowing the judges to make up their own categories as they see fit after watching the demos: People’s Choice, Best In Show, The Data Award, The Hardware Award, The Design Award. The prize is petri dish SCIENCE medals!
8. Do Science Hack Day events take place elsewhere?
Yes! Science Hack Day Antarctica 2018 is the 105th Science Hack Day event worldwide. Outside of Antarctica, Science Hack Day has taken place in 29 countries so far. Check out the map and how to organize your own Science Hack Day event at http://sciencehackday.org