The 7th October 2014 saw the 3rd PubHack event take place, and wow what a day it was! 12 teams took part and over 40 devs, designers and makers came together to take on the PubHack challenge at the Brewhouse & Kitchen in Portsmouth.
The Theme
The event kicked off at 9am where the theme was announced: Awkward Situations.
The previous themes for PubHack were Post-Apocolypse and First World Problems, so we were really excited to see what possible Awkward Situations the teams were going to come up with.
The Entries
All 12 teams completed the challenge and presented their projects at 7pm to the panel of judges: Jon Burkhart, Simon Tabor, Andrew Nesbitt and Rich Boakes.
FiveStar Apps: PubHack Presentation Simulator
Nominated for: Most Original Concept, Best Use of Technology
Up first was team FiveStar Apps, who had created a game using the Oculus Rift. Their awkward situtation was ‘what would happen if you presented at PubHack and everyone hated you?’. And so their simulator was born; using the Rift you had to avoid flying objects thrown at you by PubHack audience members, whilst being heckled.
Where’s Paddy?: SexBomb
Nominated for: Best Design, Best Use of Technology, Most Likely to Receive a Lawsuit
Next up was team Where’s Paddy? who had come up with an App that helped you get out of a bad date in the most extreme ways. The idea is that you tell the app how good or bad your date is going, and if it’s going badly, it feeds you fake news stories so that you have a good excuse to get out of the date.
Strawberry Martini: Awwwkward
Link: http://thatsawwwkward.com/
Strawberry Martini, one of two teams from agency Strawberry Soup came up with the Awwwkward App. The premise here being, when things are really awkward between you and another person, why not make it even more awkward by using an app to generate really awkward questions!
Strawberry Daquiri: Go Dutch
Nominated for: Most Entertaining
The second team from Strawberry Soup were Strawberry Daquiri, who came up with the app ‘Go Dutch’. The awkward situation here was that moment when you have to split the bill and no one is sure what to pay. So Strawberry Daquiri came up with an app with a lovely visual interface that would help you and your friends decide what to pay and what to tip.
Etch: Awkward Roulette
Nominated for: Overall Winner, Most Entertaining, Best Use of Technology
The team from Southampton agency Etch came up with an app called Awkward Roulette, which had access to your Facebook and phone contacts. You spin the wheel and whatever it lands on, whether it’s a Facebook post, a phone call or text message, it will post or call something totally awkward for you!
This Quiz is Shit: Politically Correct Joke Finder
Nominated for: Most Likely to Receive a Lawsuit
Link: http://www.changeableface.co.uk/projects/politically-correct/
Returning for their 2nd PubHack was This Quiz is Shit, who came up with a multitude of ideas but finally settled on the Politically Correct Joke Finder. The idea here is using sliders you can find a joke to suit any situation. Obviously for the purposes of the presentation they ramped it up to 11 for some pretty disturbing joke results!
Team CG: Date Escape
Nominated for: Overall Winner, Best Design
Link: http://ds.carswellgould.co.uk/
The team from Carswell Gould came up with an app that they describe as the ‘Antidote to Tinder’. Date Escape is an app that you can use to get you out of a bad date by telling it how you want to escape. As well as the app, the team put out a series of marketing campaigns throughout the day using their Twitter account @Date_Escape.
CatN: Tony Hawk’s Totally Awks
Nominated for: Most Likely to Receive a Lawsuit
Link: http://tonyhawk.is-incredibly.sexy/
Our lovely sponsors CatN also entered a team, who came up with the most random entry of the day; Tony Hawks Totally Awks. Through the website you have to try and create the most awkward situations for Tony Hawks.
#DevsDoDesign: CrapChat
Nominated for: Overall Winner, Most Original Concept
Inspired by Snapchat, previous award winners of PubHack #DevsDoDesign came up with the ultimate geeky problem (and solution). What if your phone died and you still need to send a naughty snapchat? Head to a local phone box and type out your naughty picture into a series of pixels to send. All our problems are solved thanks to #DevsDoDesign and CrapChat.
Sean Tracey: Awk-O-Meter
Nominated for: Most Original Concept
The awesome one man team that was Sean Tracey, came up with the Awk-O-Meter. Using the app you can log your awkward moments based on your location (i.e. the pub). That way, using the Awk-O-Meter you can avoid highly awkward areas and therefore awkward situations!
10 Man Team: Awksnet
Nominated for: Most Entertaining
The 2 mean team of Jake & Craig, came up with the Awksnet, which they described as ‘Like Reddit but without any of the cool stuff’. Inspired by Reddit, a person can submit their awkward situation via the website and then users can up vote or down vote your troubles.
Webree: AwkRoulette
And last but not least we had another 2 man team from Webree. AwkRoulette was a way of getting you out of awkward situations by entering a phone number into the app, which then generated a way of getting out of awkward situations.
The Results…
The judges decision was really quite difficult, with such a high standard of entries as well as such a diverse bunch of projects! But, after much deliberation the awards were presented:
Best Design: Team CG – Date Escape
Judges Comments:
“The adverts they were creating and tweeting throughout the day really did it for me, brilliant!”
“The combination of good design and engagement across social media throughout the day illustrated how a brand can be born, and why visual design is an important part of any product launch.”
Best Use of Technology: FiveStar Apps
Judges Comments:
“It’s not enough to just bring the coolest toys, you have to be able to program them too, and 5* did a great job of tailoring a basic 3D immersive game to the ‘awkward’ theme.”
“What they managed to achieve in one day whilst programming the Oculus Rift for the first time was very impressive.”
Most Likely to Receive a Lawsuit: This Quiz is Shit – Politically Correct Joke Generator
Judges Comments:
“After giving up on the tech and focusing on a presentation that relied on dark humour, there was almost no contest here!”
“So many levels of wrong, there was no opposition for the Lawsuit prize!”
Most Original Concept: #DevsDoDesign – CrapChat
Judges Comments:
“A combination of a ridiculous scenario, with a working technology solution, beautifully presented meant this scored really highly with all the judges.”
“Sending a picture message over a landline using the keypad is genius if a little tedious!”
Overall Winner & Most Entertaining: Etch – Awkward Roulette
Judges Comments:
“This wasn’t just entertaining to the room, this was an app that we wanted to play with and that we think would go viral among younger social media users who don’t mind sharing awkward moments in public. It throws awkwardness around like underwear at a Tom Jones concert.”
“The overall high level of design, completeness, fun and incredibly awkward Facebook posts made this an obvious winner for me.”
Well done everyone!
Congratulations to all the teams that took part, we’re always completely blown away by what you can achieve in 10 hours and really hope you want to join us again next time at PubHack #4 (TBA!)
We also want to say another huge than you to all our sponsors who made the event possible: FreeAgent, GoSquared, CatN, GitHub, Starboard Media, Egeniq, Trello and Good Audience.
