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Ask HN: Anyone got any project ideas for fun office tools?
Hi,
At the moment our office has a custom music player for a 'democratic' song queue that plays on the speakers. Has any one got any other cool ideas of things that could be built to make the office more productive or fun?
- superqwert 9y agoThis sounds like an awful distraction
- jukedill 9y agoSure it can be at some times, but the morale boost of it and getting to know peoples music tastes is worth the trade off. Depends on the person if it's favourable or not, it isn't notoriously loud anyway, just loud enough to hear if you concentrate on it.
- 8draco8 9y agoHave you heard about "Is the toilet free?" ? https://madebymany.com/stories/is-the-toilet-free https://madebymany.com/stories/is-the-toilet-free
- jukedill 9y agoon the right track with the ideas, this just wouldn't work for us as we have multiple toilets
- 8draco8 9y agoI don't see the problem. Instead of on/off icon use number of toilets left and you are good. You try to see the problem where there is none. It seems that you are trying to force the office to be "cool" and "hip". Instead of putting vending machines on each corner and playing distracting music trough whole office because you read online that this is how facebook is doing, give your developers some space, listen to them and what they need. Maybe they don't need drone delivered sandwiches and prefer high end chair or good monitor. </rant>
- jukedill 9y agoI'd prefer not having anything monitoring the toilet habits of employees, little bit creepy. And I think you are jumping to some wild conclusions, I'd recommend making some rational thoughts before typing and not projecting your self into everything you say.
- mtmail 9y agoA traffic light that goes red when the office is too loud. https://rradczewski.github.io/ymmv/2017/06/Where-we-are-going-we-dont-need-headphones https://rradczewski.github.io/ymmv/2017/06/Where-we-are-goin... (discussed here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14582187 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14582187)
- tmaly 9y agoa "Thinking" sign that resembles the On Air signs in a radio studio.
- zer00eyz 9y agoI don't have a particular project in mind but rather a broad suggestion. Software is fun, but hardware is now "easy" -- There are plenty of hardware starter kits from places like adafruit and seed studio that you could drop into your office and let people have at it. A few hundred bucks (and lets face it that isn't a lot if your doing software) can get you a lot of toys for people to play with and explore with.
- Jemaclus 9y agoI'll tell you something I've always wanted. I want a giant lever that's attached to a "The Price Is Right"-style fixture with tons of tiny lightbulbs. When I pull the lever, the light bulbs start turning on from the bottom to the top. What's happening during this time is my unit tests are running, then it's connecting to the server(s) to begin deployment. Once the deployment begins, the top section starts flashing, and when deployment is complete, the top of the fixture starts flashing "YOU WIN!!" or something, similar to a carnival game. Basically, I want deploying to be super boring under the hood, but SUPER AWESOME in the office. Another idea I had was one of those TNT detonator devices, with the handle that you press downward, and it lights up a bunch of lights and then has a little LED animated explosion on the wall. Or the giant hammer thing where you slam a hammer into a thingy on the ground, and the weight goes flying up, and it has to hit the top in order for the deployment to begin. Ya know what, let's just take all carnie games and turn them into deployment mechanisms. HOW AWESOME WOULD THAT BE?? Awesome. ...Someday...
- jukedill 9y agoThat's a cool idea, we deploy so many times a day though it's not a huge event for us. But cool for some other companies for sure.