Projects / Hack the North 2025
FinalistHack the North 2025: FinalistsConfidence: medium
S-KBD67
A Nerf blaster rebuilt as a first-person-shooter controller.
Project facts
- Team
- Size unknown
- Build
- hardware software
- AI
- none
Problem
Shooter games are played with a mouse and keyboard; the physical fantasy of actually aiming a blaster is missing.
Solution
Microcontrollers, a gyroscope, a joystick and buttons mounted on the blaster stream motion and inputs over Wi-Fi as UDP packets to a Python app that maps them to mouse and keyboard events.
Demo moment
Pick up the toy gun, aim, pump to reload, pull the trigger — and the game on screen responds.
Why it stood out
- curator inferenceGives an object every judge recognizes a job it was never meant for; the idea fits in one sentence.
- team statedSplit into hardware and backend sub-teams that integrated at the end, keeping both halves moving in parallel.Source ↗
- curator inferenceNo AI at a 2025 AI-heavy event; wow came from physical play, not model calls.
- organizer statedOrganizer featured it as the lead past project on the next year's homepage.Source ↗
Lessons for your next hackathon
- A finished, playable toy beats an unfinished platform. Parallelize hardware and software from hour one.
Similar situations
Projects that share domains, mechanisms or judging lenses — often with a different problem and stack.Tune the comparison.
Grand winner · 2024
A Furby-shaped desk assistant that follows your face, reads your mood and talks back.
Shared: domains robotics hardware · mechanisms cultural reference hook, physical artifact, demo first wow, one sentence clarity · lenses wow factor, originality · stack python
Finalist · 2025
Voice-commanded robotic arm that sees its workspace and acts on natural-language instructions.
Shared: domains robotics hardware · mechanisms cultural reference hook, physical artifact, demo first wow, one sentence clarity · lenses wow factor · stack python
Podium #2 · 2024
A from-scratch BASIC compiler and runtime for building interactive web pages.
Shared: mechanisms familiar thing new job, tight scope finished · lenses originality · ai none
Finalist · 2025
A robot that draws paintings onto a blind person's palm with warm and cold brushes, with narration.
Shared: domains robotics hardware · mechanisms physical artifact, cultural reference hook, demo first wow · lenses wow factor · stack python
Award winner · 2025
A story-driven farming game: travel with Henry to farmers facing floods, heat, drought and salty soil, and solve each with real NASA satellite data.
Shared: domains games entertainment · mechanisms familiar thing new job · lenses originality · stack python
Submitted · 2026
Ask for help and coordinate rescues without internet, with remote visibility once the network returns.
Shared: domains robotics hardware · mechanisms physical artifact, one sentence clarity · lenses wow factor · stack esp32, python
Sources
- https://devpost.com/software/s-kbd67 · devpost project · retrieved 2026-09-14
- https://hackthenorth.com/ · official event page · retrieved 2026-09-14