Make something half-baked with friends in one weekend ✨

Terrible Ideas happen everywhere – from pottery to programming. This event is a challenge to create the most terrible, awful, brilliant ideas you can think of! From robot-driven tattoo guns and soleless Jandals or marmite flavoured fudge to the world’s most professionally bad D&D module, join us in a celebration of failure, creativity, and stupid, terrible decisions.

HACK   TRY   BUTCHER   SLASH   CRAFT   FIX   DECONSTRUCT   CAUSE CLIMATE CHANGE   CROCHET   BREAK   LASER CUT   REPAIR   ROLEPLAY   DESTROY   IDEATE   STOP CLIMATE CHANGE   TATTOO   EXAMPLE TEXT

HACK   TRY   BUTCHER   SLASH   CRAFT   FIX   DECONSTRUCT   CAUSE CLIMATE CHANGE   CROCHET   BREAK   LASER CUT   REPAIR   ROLEPLAY   DESTROY   IDEATE   STOP CLIMATE CHANGE   TATTOO   EXAMPLE TEXT

HACK   TRY   BUTCHER   SLASH   CRAFT   FIX   DECONSTRUCT   CAUSE CLIMATE CHANGE   CROCHET   BREAK   LASER CUT   REPAIR   ROLEPLAY   DESTROY   IDEATE   STOP CLIMATE CHANGE   TATTOO   EXAMPLE TEXT

CAUSE CLIMATE CHANGE   CROCHET   BREAK   LASER CUT   REPAIR   ROLEPLAY   DESTROY   IDEATE   STOP CLIMATE CHANGE   TATTOO   EXAMPLE TEXT   HACK   TRY   BUTCHER   SLASH   CRAFT   FIX   DECONSTRUCT

CAUSE CLIMATE CHANGE   CROCHET   BREAK   LASER CUT   REPAIR   ROLEPLAY   DESTROY   IDEATE   STOP CLIMATE CHANGE   TATTOO   EXAMPLE TEXT   HACK   TRY   BUTCHER   SLASH   CRAFT   FIX   DECONSTRUCT

CAUSE CLIMATE CHANGE   CROCHET   BREAK   LASER CUT   REPAIR   ROLEPLAY   DESTROY   IDEATE   STOP CLIMATE CHANGE   TATTOO   EXAMPLE TEXT   HACK   TRY   BUTCHER   SLASH   CRAFT   FIX   DECONSTRUCT

Terrible Ideas 2021

2nd – 4th July 2021

This was our first-ever Terrible Ideas event in NZ! The weekend-long event took place at the Unleash Space right here at the University of Auckland.

Terrible Ideas 2023

10th – 12th March 2023

The Terrible Ideas Hackathon returned in 2023, with over 80 participants joinng to smash together 26 projects in 46 hours.

Terrible Ideas Whangārei 2023

6th – 7th July 2023

Your Funeral Pinata might put the fun back in funerals but is it terrible enough to beat the toilet with an automated bottom wiping arm? Join us in a celebration of Terrible Ideas!

Terrible Ideas Hackathon is a weekend-long adventure in creating strange things

Hand-drawn scribble: "Worth Reading!"

More About the Weekend

I don’t have much experience making things, or I’m not sure I’ll be the right fit for this weekend. Should I still come?

Absolutely – bring your friends too (but make sure they register)! Whether you’re gluing cardboard together, developing algorithms, or writing a 5,000-word Shrek fanfiction, we’d love to have you on board. If this is your first time and you’ve got no idea what to do, we’ll have an awesome group of volunteers and a great community who will help you have a good time. The Terrible Ideas Hackathon is open to everyone 18+, whether you’re a student, alumni, member of the public, or otherwise.

What should I try and get out of the weekend?

We hope first and foremost that you’ll have a chance to make some friends, learn new things, and have a bit of fun. While Terrible Hack is a celebration of bad ideas, in order to make things you’ll likely have to think about what makes an idea “good” or “bad” and learn a bit on how to practically apply your skills to solve problems.

While other hackathons are often competitive, Terrible Hack is not – we won’t have any (serious) prizes. This is intentional, and we hope that it’ll give you the opportunity to be a bit more ambitious in your choices of projects than you might be normally. In the end, whether you finish your project or not it’s only 46 hours – one weekend! There’s a lot to gain from trying something crazy and not much to lose by failing, so take this opportunity to take chances, make mistakes, and get messy!

What should I expect from the weekend?

We’re excited to say that for over 50% of you, this will be your first time participating in a hackathon. This is awesome, and if you’re one of the many who’ve decided to give this a shot, go you! In the simplest sense, a hackathon is a challenge or event where people come together to make things or solve problems. While traditionally these events are focused on technology, the Terrible Ideas Hackathon is broadly about making anything, be it through code, paintbrush, craft knife, written word, video, music or otherwise.

Through the weekend, we’ll help people pair up into teams (these can be any size, but we recommend 3-10). From there, you’ll pick something that you want to make – we’ll have lots of ideas swimming around, and you’re welcome to bring your own. For the Terrible Ideas Hackathon, we’ll also have a few “Diversifiers” – suggestions and themes that you can use if you want a place to start.

Will we be working in teams? Is there a max team size?

Generally we strongly encourage everyone to work in teams during the weekend! You’re welcome to bring friends and make a team with them, but many people will be forming teams for the first time on Friday night and we’ll help you do this.

There is no maximum or minimum team size (anywhere from 1 to 100 is fine). We tend to find that teams work well up to 10 people.

Other Cool Events & Communities