Junk Drawer Competition 2024

The Junk Drawer Competition is our inaugural seasonal competition in which you build something epic in 3 weeks with parts you already have.

Total prize pool of $2,000+

Overview

Calling every creator on Hackster! It’s time to raid your junk drawers, scavenge your workbenches, and unleash your imagination because our new Year-end Junk Drawer Competition is officially here! This is your chance to finish 2024 with a creative bang and show the world what you can do with a little determination and a bin full of random parts.

This competition is all about giving those half-baked, half-built, or half-dreamed projects the love they deserve. Got a robot that’s been gathering dust? A gadget that didn’t quite work out (but could with a little TLC)? Or maybe just a wild idea you’ve been too busy to start? Let’s make it happen—and maybe win a reward too!

The Annual Junk Drawer Competition is here to celebrate the messy, chaotic, and joyful process of turning forgotten ideas into tangible creations. Whether you’re resurrecting a project or starting something totally new, we’re cheering you on every step of the way. This isn’t about being perfect—it’s about having fun, experimenting, and sharing your journey.

Why You Should Enter

Bring that super cool unfinished project or idea back to life.
Close out a busy year with some light-hearted fun by celebrating the maker spirit.
Win cool prizes (and bragging rights) for being hand selected by our staff.
Start 2025 off strong with one new years resolution already complete!
You can submit as many entries as you'd like for the different judges choices categories!

View section

Prizes

To keep things extra fun, we’ve got nine quirky prize categories, each dreamed up by a Hackster.io staff member. They’ve picked the theme and the prize and will be your judge, jury, and (hopefully not) executioner. Check out the prize categories a little further down the page. There’s a category for everyone, so find one that fits you and go for it! Feel free to tag the judging staff member in a discussion thread to learn what they would love to see.

The Team Favorite

This prize is awarded to the most creative projects that score the highest across all judging criteria. Be sure to review the rules to understand how we score projects.

1st Place

1 winner

$300 gift card

2nd Place

1 winner

$200 gift card

3rd Place

1 winner

$100 gift card

Alex's Friendly Robot

Create a robot friend for yourself! Big or small, this companion has a personality and may help you accomplish your goals in life, retrieve information, and/or provide a platform to learn new skills as you build on it further.

At minimum, your bot should include movement and sound. It could be wearable, or a desktop friend – or could roll around and follow you, or anything else! Focus on your bot’s personality, be creative, and express yourself: a well-developed original design will do better than a cosplay prop or movie replica.

1 winner

Santa-themed Otto robot kit, signed by Alex Glow

$159 value

Ben's Connected Creation

Create that project you always wanted to do that combines hardware + cloud + an app interface. You can use any type of connectivity to send data to and from the cloud. WiFi is easy, so there are bonus points if you use cellular, satellite, LoRa, or others. Double bonus points if you write your own low-level AT command interface. The project must incorporate two-way communication from the cloud.

The most useful and complete connected solution will win the prize :)

1 winner

Pair of Heltec V3 devices with upgraded whip antenna

$150 value

Courtney's Immersive Gaming Experience

Immersive Gaming Experience: Enhance your gaming experience using any of the five senses (sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch). For example, you could enhance a haptic chair, enable a motion tracker for gesture based gaming, develop a wind machine to stay cool, create a custom game controller, set up a scent machine, or design a head tracking device.

1 winner

SteelSeries Apex PRO TKL Keyboard

$179 value

Jessalyn's Pop Culture Dream

Create the most innovative, relevant, and fun creation related to pop culture! Your creation can be inspired by a big (or small) moment in pop culture, such as a basketball player that dunks a cookie in milk, your own high tech version of Barbie and her dream (smart) house, lights that are synced to your favorite chart-topping songs, or a tricked out version of your favorite movie or tv prop.

1 winner

JBL Headphones

$199 value

Jinger's Blinky Wear

Create a blinky wear for yourself! This could be a Cinderella glass slipper that sparkles, a wizard hat that lights up, a bowtie that blinks, or it could be a total transformation of your cultural garb such as a sari, hanbok, or kimono, making your fashion shine with patterns & electronics! The project that best balances the blink, the fashion, and the culture will win the prize. Any AI integration gets bonus points!

1 winner

Mentra Smart Glass

Super exclusive and wait-list-only item! AI smart glass that could upgrade your intelligence in everyday convo!

Katie's Kitchen Gadget

Create a tech kitchen gadget or kitchen solution! This could be retrofitting a traditional appliance to enable remote control, automation or monitoring capabilities, or building a solution to reduce food waste. The gadget or solution must be related to the kitchen space, cooking, or baking and can be practical or just for fun, the sky's the limit!

1 winner

Wireless Bluetooth Smart Meat Thermometer

$179 value

Kevin's Data Dumpster Dive

Transform your junk drawer electronics into a data-generating powerhouse! Create a system that pulls meaningful insights from unexpected components. Your project should collect meaningful-to-you, real-world data (temperature, motion, sound, environmental conditions, etc.) and store and track this data over time. Bonus points if your project demonstrates a practical application or triggers action based on the collected insights.

1 winner

Garmin Instinct® 2

$199 value

A rugged GPS smartwatch is tough enough to keep up with you and unique enough to fit your style.

Brooke's Backscratcher

We all get that itch you just can't reach. Create a back scratcher from all the things in your junk drawer. And yes, we do mean all the things in your junk pile. The Rube Goldberg-style contraption can incorporate as many parts as your heart desires but should have a minimum of 3 sections. Hi-tech, low-tech it doesn't matter.

1 winner

Full Body Massage Chair Pad

$239 value

Griffin's Automated Personal Assistant

Create something that automates a daily or weekly task for yourself. Whether it takes 15 minutes or 15 seconds, get crafty and gift yourself back some precious time. Your future self will thank you! For example: automatically start brewing coffee when it has been detected that you’ve left your bedroom in the morning; automatically watering your plant when it has been detected that the soil is dry.