5 ms·

Ask HN: What is a project I can complete in a night?

19 points by newaccountfool 12y ago

I have 8 hours to kill, and I can't work on any of my other code. I would like to be somewhat productive and build something. I know there is lots of 'weekend coding projects' but is there anything that you can attempt to build in a night?

iroot 12y ago
If you are interested in mathematics and algorithms, you can solve Project Euler problems projecteuler.net/problems
- newaccountfool 12y ago
  Yeah was thinking of that, there's currently an Algorithms Course on Coursera so might have a look at that.
skazka16 12y ago
"Yo" app :) It took 8 hours to build it. Then someone invested $1M. I don't get the world.
- yopeoplefinder 12y ago
  http://yopeoplefinder.appspot.com http://yopeoplefinder.appspot.com took 1 hour to build...
sejje 12y ago
URL shortener Flickr creative commons image search engine Twitter bot Quote scraper Deal alerter for craigslist IFTTT on a scale relevant to you
- newaccountfool 12y ago
  Twitter Bot sounds good, like that Idea. Really like the idea of automation.
  - sejje 12y ago
    They're not allowed and if it's detectable as a bot it'll get shut down. But they're still fun.
    - marvy 12y ago
      Actually they are allowed. https://support.twitter.com/articles/76915# https://support.twitter.com/articles/76915#
      - sejje 12y ago
        Good call. My bots have always been @reply bots, hence my confusion. In particular, I was doing stuff like this: "For example, sending automated @replies based on keyword searches is not permitted."
- pgcosta 12y ago
  I feel like anything related to twitter is very troublesome. They are very restrictive. I tried to make an agregation of all the people I was following, and mining their 'about' text, and right off ran out of api requests quota.
DanBC 12y ago
A simple game for smart phones. Draw a pipe on the screen. First pipe is short and straight. They get longer and have more curves. "Drop" a ball into the pipe. The user tilts their phone clockwise or anti-clockwise to guide the ball through the pipe. That tilting is the only control the user has. Each pipe should be short enough to create the "I nearly did that; just one more go" effect.
HarshaThota 12y ago
You could try contributing to some open source projects instead. http://up-for-grabs.net/ http://up-for-grabs.net/ has a list of projects with issues/tasks that are easy for new contributors to pick up.
- bennyg 12y ago
  That would be such an awesome site if practically everything wasn't on a Microsoft platform. I'd love to contribute towards some Objective-C but everything I see is .NET/F#
clark-kent 12y ago
Try learning and hacking on some new technology you are not familiar with.
templeos2 12y ago
Adults don't play games. Adults write hymns for God. The Bible says "Sing a new song" 9 times. Use the Psalmody application to randomly make a melody. Make a few, choose good one. Generate a random word for the title with F7. Create words for the song in psalmody. When finished, edit the program for the song and make animated graphcs. When finished with your offering, get God's response with F7 and SHIFT-F7.
collyw 12y ago
Something that doesn't involve much user interface. I have been working an a side project recently. The guts of the code is very simple and done already. Getting all the surrounding framework to serve it up as a web page and do input validation is taking forever (mainly because I only get an hour or two at a time to work on it). Its all the "polish" that takes the time. So something command line based would be easier.
msantos 12y ago
A Raspberry Pi with motion detection and SMS. I've built one using an old nokia that supports AT commands. Pretty fun stuff and no soldering required. Next up I'll try adding a camera and send MMS messages through the mobile phone with photos when motion is detected. Helpful links: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Emgreat-Detecting-Pyroelectric-HC-SR501-Arduino/dp/B00EDHGMEY/ http://www.amazon.co.uk/Emgreat-Detecting-Pyroelectric-HC-SR... http://www.amazon.co.uk/Pyroelectric-Infrared-Motion-Sensor-Detector/dp/B008AESDSY/ http://www.amazon.co.uk/Pyroelectric-Infrared-Motion-Sensor-... http://www.raspberrypi-spy.co.uk/2013/01/cheap-pir-sensors-and-the-raspberry-pi-part-1/ http://www.raspberrypi-spy.co.uk/2013/01/cheap-pir-sensors-a... http://www.adafruit.com/products/189 http://www.adafruit.com/products/189 https://www.modmypi.com/blog/raspberry-pi-gpio-sensing-motion-detection https://www.modmypi.com/blog/raspberry-pi-gpio-sensing-motio... http://raspberrypi.stackexchange.com/questions/13334/how-can-i-use-my-raspberry-pi-for-motion-detection-and-sms http://raspberrypi.stackexchange.com/questions/13334/how-can...
S4M 12y ago
If you are using emacs, you can try to write some ELisp code to fix something you don't like or automate something you do often.
dllthomas 12y ago
I'll second the "find a bug to fix". There are a lot of projects out there that are welcoming to newbies.

iroot 12y ago

If you are interested in mathematics and algorithms, you can solve Project Euler problems projecteuler.net/problems

newaccountfool 12y ago
Yeah was thinking of that, there's currently an Algorithms Course on Coursera so might have a look at that.

skazka16 12y ago

"Yo" app :) It took 8 hours to build it. Then someone invested $1M. I don't get the world.

yopeoplefinder 12y ago
http://yopeoplefinder.appspot.com http://yopeoplefinder.appspot.com took 1 hour to build...

sejje 12y ago

URL shortener Flickr creative commons image search engine Twitter bot Quote scraper Deal alerter for craigslist IFTTT on a scale relevant to you

newaccountfool 12y ago
Twitter Bot sounds good, like that Idea. Really like the idea of automation.
- sejje 12y ago
  They're not allowed and if it's detectable as a bot it'll get shut down. But they're still fun.
  - marvy 12y ago
    Actually they are allowed. https://support.twitter.com/articles/76915# https://support.twitter.com/articles/76915#
    - sejje 12y ago
      Good call. My bots have always been @reply bots, hence my confusion. In particular, I was doing stuff like this: "For example, sending automated @replies based on keyword searches is not permitted."
pgcosta 12y ago
I feel like anything related to twitter is very troublesome. They are very restrictive. I tried to make an agregation of all the people I was following, and mining their 'about' text, and right off ran out of api requests quota.

DanBC 12y ago

A simple game for smart phones. Draw a pipe on the screen. First pipe is short and straight. They get longer and have more curves. "Drop" a ball into the pipe. The user tilts their phone clockwise or anti-clockwise to guide the ball through the pipe. That tilting is the only control the user has. Each pipe should be short enough to create the "I nearly did that; just one more go" effect.

HarshaThota 12y ago

You could try contributing to some open source projects instead. http://up-for-grabs.net/ http://up-for-grabs.net/ has a list of projects with issues/tasks that are easy for new contributors to pick up.

bennyg 12y ago
That would be such an awesome site if practically everything wasn't on a Microsoft platform. I'd love to contribute towards some Objective-C but everything I see is .NET/F#

clark-kent 12y ago

Try learning and hacking on some new technology you are not familiar with.

templeos2 12y ago

Adults don't play games. Adults write hymns for God. The Bible says "Sing a new song" 9 times. Use the Psalmody application to randomly make a melody. Make a few, choose good one. Generate a random word for the title with F7. Create words for the song in psalmody. When finished, edit the program for the song and make animated graphcs. When finished with your offering, get God's response with F7 and SHIFT-F7.

collyw 12y ago

Something that doesn't involve much user interface. I have been working an a side project recently. The guts of the code is very simple and done already. Getting all the surrounding framework to serve it up as a web page and do input validation is taking forever (mainly because I only get an hour or two at a time to work on it). Its all the "polish" that takes the time. So something command line based would be easier.

msantos 12y ago

A Raspberry Pi with motion detection and SMS. I've built one using an old nokia that supports AT commands. Pretty fun stuff and no soldering required. Next up I'll try adding a camera and send MMS messages through the mobile phone with photos when motion is detected. Helpful links: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Emgreat-Detecting-Pyroelectric-HC-SR501-Arduino/dp/B00EDHGMEY/ http://www.amazon.co.uk/Emgreat-Detecting-Pyroelectric-HC-SR... http://www.amazon.co.uk/Pyroelectric-Infrared-Motion-Sensor-Detector/dp/B008AESDSY/ http://www.amazon.co.uk/Pyroelectric-Infrared-Motion-Sensor-... http://www.raspberrypi-spy.co.uk/2013/01/cheap-pir-sensors-and-the-raspberry-pi-part-1/ http://www.raspberrypi-spy.co.uk/2013/01/cheap-pir-sensors-a... http://www.adafruit.com/products/189 http://www.adafruit.com/products/189 https://www.modmypi.com/blog/raspberry-pi-gpio-sensing-motion-detection https://www.modmypi.com/blog/raspberry-pi-gpio-sensing-motio... http://raspberrypi.stackexchange.com/questions/13334/how-can-i-use-my-raspberry-pi-for-motion-detection-and-sms http://raspberrypi.stackexchange.com/questions/13334/how-can...

S4M 12y ago

If you are using emacs, you can try to write some ELisp code to fix something you don't like or automate something you do often.

dllthomas 12y ago

I'll second the "find a bug to fix". There are a lot of projects out there that are welcoming to newbies.