RIP software hackathons. Long live the hardware hackathon
A recent hackathon participant describes a shift in the developer community toward hardware-focused projects that utilize AI agents instead of traditional manual coding. The author argues that as software development becomes increasingly automated, the focus is moving toward physical world interfaces.
Why it matters
This reflects a broader trend in the tech industry where AI-driven abstraction is changing the nature of software engineering and creative problem-solving.
I took part in a hackathon in Vilnius the other weekend (courtesy of Basedcollective) during the pink soup festival . I brought along an old rotary phone and our two-man team spent the next 48 hours sticking our fingers in it. We wired a Raspberry Pi into the phone which interfaced with all of its IO and communicated with our server via a single websocket connection which controlled everything from two-way audio, the bell ringer (with custom frequency and audio patterns) and the hangup switch. For the demo, we set up an AI agent which could research music, create playlists and play collections of niche music all via the Spotify API on request. Interpreting requests such as:
The content is a personal observation of industry trends rather than a political or social argument.
Get smarter about the news
Sign up free for a feed built around what you actually care about, Dive Deeper research on any story, and the full text of every article.
Create free accountAlready have an account? Sign in