Project Guidelines

If you're wondering what you're allowed to build, the bottom line is this:

Build something awesome, something that you would be proud to keep in your room for the next 5 years, and something that you would be proud to show other people.

Let's get teenagers to be the ones to make the best projects yet.

Overview

Here's an overall list of what is allowed / isn't allowed for your project! Keep in mind these are just guidelines

Generally speaking, each project must be closer to a product than a demo - that doesn't mean go ultra advertising mode, but that does mean that a breadboarded together project with no case doesn't count.

Complexity

A custom project should include each of the following:

A case / cover / some sort of physical part
A custom PCB (unless you REALLY don't need it)
Ideally some sort of software config / cronjob / tool that is beyond the defaults of whatever you're doing

Originality

Almost every idea out there has been thought of before - what matters is that when designing it, which means that you do not do the following:

Directly copy paste schematics
Directly copy paste layouts
Directly copy paste entire programs
Directly copy paste 3D printed / manufactured models (reference parts are OK)
In general, do not copy paste stuff directly - use them as references

Examples

Here are some examples of great projects by Hack Clubbers:

@Ducc's Spotify Display, a Spotify Car Thing Clone
@Cyao's Icepi Zero, an FPGA development dev board
@vk6's Ender X4, a 4-toolhead 3D printer

Here are some examples of what not to build:

Arduino alarm clock
Humidity display
Distance sensor

Here's some examples of how you could make those projects better:

Arduino alarm clock, but it has custom LED lighting that syncs with the time of day & also has a slide switch instead of a button to control it
A humidity display that's part of a larger weather station setup and compares the internal readings of your house to the outside world
A distance sensor that checks if someone is coming to your room & sends an alert to your phone if they do