At this time of year, light seems more important than ever. With short days and long nights many suffer with the winter blues.
Light has a physiological effect on our bodies, changing our sleep/wake system, hormones, mood and energy.
In Denmark there's a word that describes the intimate cosiness of a room, ‘Hygge’ - which is importantly influenced by lighting. Usually lots of lamps! Not to mention the use of light in entertainment - at events and gigs - and of course the environmental benefits of hacking into light - solar energy.
So what would you do if you could hack into light?! If you could kick off a startup that uses light as an inspiration, what would it be?
We challenge you to build something cool in response to the following question:
“How can we use light to improve or enhance the human experience or the world around us?”
This is your chance to get together to generate ideas and solutions. And the brilliant thing is, you don't need to be a coder to get involved!
Whether you use the evening to build a beautiful new app, pitch an idea, create a hand-drawn prototype, code something crazy, hack some hardware or just let your ideas run wild - it's up to you!
The rules
To keep things fair we like to set a few ground rules.
No coding or creating mockups before the day! Preparation is good, and you’re welcome to do a bit of research beforehand, but to keep things fair you can’t have started on the code or mockups for your project until the day.
Not a developer? We recommend using Sketch (https://www.sketchapp.com/) or Marvel (https://marvelapp.com/) (both have free trials!) to prototype your idea.
Teams can be any size up to a maximum of 4.
What to expect
We’ll start the night with some homemade food (meaty and vegan options available) and a chance to get settled into teams.
Simpleweb challenge nights are a great opportunity to collaborate and learn from each other, so we always encourage attendees to hack in teams of 3 or 4.
You’re welcome to form a team before the night itself. But if you don’t know anyone or have no time to get a team together, have no fear, we’ll help match up those with an idea to other skilled attendees on the night and make sure no one is left out!
After that it’s time to get hacking. You’ll have about 3 hours to work on your project. We’ll keep the refreshments flowing throughout with bottomless tea, soft drinks and some cheeky beers and ciders, as well as some tasty homemade cake to keep you going.
At the end of the night, each team will get a couple of minutes to show off their idea and vote for the winner(s).
There will of course be PRIZES for the winners which will be revealed on the night!
Photos
We love to shout about our hacks and all the cool ideas people come up with on social media and our blog.
However, if you'd prefer us to not take/publish your photo, please do get in touch either before the event (by emailing [masked]) or mention to the meetup host (Alice) at any point during the evening.
We also ask that if you take any photos on the night, please ask your fellow hackers permission before making them public.
Accessibility
If you have any accessibility needs, please email [masked].
