Fancy seeing your work on MSN?

MSN UK have partnered up with Digital Shoreditch to launch Scareathon, a day-long Halloween-inspired hackathon event. 

Hackathons (where groups of techies get together to make apps or software) are traditionally intense, serious affairs but the Scareathon aims to avoid this ’hackathon-fatigue’ with a fun new take on the idea.  Just in time for Halloween, the event is looking for digital projects that will scare the pants off people.

Scareathon is taking place on the 27th October at Ravensbourne University in London and is part of the 2012 London Transmedia Festival in partnership with Ravensbourne, Queen Mary University, City University, and MSN UK.

Anyone can enter, from hackers to digital designers, but competition is high and there are only 50 places.  Here are the official guidelines from Digital Shoreditch on what they are looking for:
 

‘Design, make, build, or create a project (virtual or actual) in the spirit of Halloween with the intent of inducing surprise or fear.  This can be done via elements of good-humoured shock, repulsion, disorientation, storytelling, interaction design, or other medium.  The outcomes might include websites, apps, physically interactive projects or digitally-created soundscapes, among other things.’

Some ideas could include:

• Make a horrifyingly gory app/minisite to “zombify” your pictures
• Use a Kinect to design a super-creepy interactive “paranormal” website
• Build a reactive “scare-bot” using an Arduino controller
• Raise goose bumps by creating chilling interactive soundscape using strategically placed piezo microphones and sensors
• …or anything else you can think of!

The project that scares the secret guest-judge the most will be shown on the MSN UK website, exposing the project to potentially tens of thousands of people.  The winners will also receive the title of ‘Grand Scare Champion’.

Fancy dress is strongly encouraged.  For more information and to buy tickets, visit digitalshoreditch.com/scareathon