Your Ideas for QuakeCon Events

FrgMstr

FrgMstr

Just Plain Mean
Staff member
Joined
May 18, 1997
Messages
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We are looking for “hardware-centric” activities to have at QuakeCon, in the same vein as killer CaseMod competitions and Timed Computer Building races. If you have an original idea, one that would make QuakeCon more fun for more folks please sound off by posting your ideas here. We want to have several hardware-centric events each and every day.
 
You know how Doom III is supposed to scare the crap out of everyone, why not build a pc with motion sensors that plays a creapy ass noise and launches some scary image on the screen.

lame and corny but sounds funny enough.
 
<bad idea>
Timed Wiring competitions. Start with several realllly poorly wired case. Team that uses the least length of wiring and is the neatest in the amount of given time wins.
</bad idea>
 
Carnival Forces said:
<bad idea>
Timed Wiring competitions. Start with several realllly poorly wired case. Team that uses the least length of wiring and is the neatest in the amount of given time wins.
</bad idea>
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Why not? That would be pretty funny. You could start with my PC.. lol
 
You can play a game of "Who can zap the memory first". Give each participant a stick of ram and a pair of nylon socks. Have a carpet laid out where they can drag there feet across. After each attempt to zap the stick with there fingers, they have to try and boot the computer. First one that doesn't post wins. :D
 
how about an old school computer building competition, people would have to know something about 3D pass though cards, matched pair sims, 2.1gb limits of fat16, AT power supplies. something to hold true for people who were here before ATX.

Or a computer with server needs, setting up for raid 5, or setting scsi ids...something for the HARDCORE hardware people.
 
pedro_roach said:
You can play a game of "Who can zap the memory first". Give each participant a stick of ram and a pair of nylon socks. Have a carpet laid out where they can drag there feet across. After each attempt to zap the stick with there fingers, they have to try and boot the computer. First one that doesn't post wins. :D
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Hi, i'm from the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to [H]ardware, and I'll need a little information from you please....
 
-Have a competition for "dirtiest fuzzballed computer" with a caveat that it must be a FUNCTIONING unit. Contestants must open the case and present the fuzzballs to be judged...

-Hard drive impact contest...a running PC, have the contestant tap the drive harder and harder until it dies...winner is the one that takes the hardest whack and keeps running...

Yes, dumb ideas....
 
Fix it up contest
Basicly, screw up the compters, each in the same way, and let the people/teams try fix it. Pretty simple to very hard stuff. every thing from memory half way out, to getting bad ram purposly installed. If you can find a company that could donate bad ram, that would help.
 
dollar/per frames in some sort of PC vid games. Basically who can build the cheapest computer and get the maximum amount of performance out of it.
 
Xipher said:
Fix it up contest
Basicly, screw up the compters, each in the same way, and let the people/teams try fix it. Pretty simple to very hard stuff. every thing from memory half way out, to getting bad ram purposly installed. If you can find a company that could donate bad ram, that would help.
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Maybe we could get OCZ to sponsor this one? ;)
 
Idea 1. How about a game of "Name that Silicon" where various pieces of hardware are presented to a panel, and they have to "Buzz in" the quickest for the chance to name what it is. This would be really fun if you could get ahold of some old school stuff, like VESA Local Bus cards. Or perhaps a Jeopardy style quiz?

Idea 2. Not sure if previous Game Machine Building competitions did this, but you could have a build competition, and the contestants are given lots of hardware, like multiple motherboards, different types of RAM, different Video cards, none of it labled beyond the standard factory markings, and see not only who can built a working machine the fastest, but who builds the fastest machine the fastest. So it's not just a race to slap parts together, they have to think about the components they are picking as well. You could score it like a rally race, with points for each segment, such as points for first to POST, points for first to load a working OS, points for first to launch the test game, and points for the best benchmark in that game. So that means the the first person to build a machine wouldn't necessarily be the winner, nor would the person who built the absolute fastest machine.
 
Why not just have a couple of episodes of "[H]ard Makeover". Morelike the MTV show Pimp My Ride. Pick a couple of terrible rigs and work some [H]ard magic on them. ;)

Scott 'worm' Cray
QuakeCon BYOC Staff

Disclaimer: I don't even speak for myself, much less for QuakeCon
 
hardware fantasy draft & build. Teams are entered and then get slotted for the fantasy draft where they choose from a list of available components each round. Could probably break it up into two divisions, Intel and AMD. The built comps then go head to head for some benchmarking action (preferably running the table from gaming to office apps). You could then pit the AMD top winner against the Intel top. Tweak and overclock your way to victory! (new benchmarks should be done each round if possible, giving the teams a small amount of time to make changes as possible.) maybe you could aquire some components from teams you defeat?
 
"Geek Eye for the Straight Guy"?

Geek a person out with thinkgeek.com type products for the work cube, add lights to their computer, really loud 120mm fans, simple modding to their computer, stereo upgrade for their car with tv and dvd.

---

Wheel of Geek (ala man show)

Good and bad fates to only those brave enough to spin the wheel. Dinner with a booth babe or win a 486, trade your new video card for a Voodoo 2 non-sli.
 
Speed Build a PC..... but make the PC a 386.... give em a PC-DOS 6.0 boot disk, and make sure all the IRQ's, DMA's, IO addresses, com ports and stuff are jumpered wrong on all the cards.... rip the cylinder/head/etc labels off the hard drives, and make them manually set bus speed/multiplier on the board...

Kids nowadays are all spoiled with all this auto-configuration, plug and play shiet :p


Or, a 'you broke your ram, re-solder it to make it work' competition...

Get cheap sticks of like 128mb ram, and break em in half... first one with a working stick, wins :)

Or, how about 'build a useful system mod/component/etc with these radio shack parts' and have a vast selection of radio shack logic IC's, resistors, caps, transistors, etc etc etc...

(Am I looking too obvious that I'm an electronics freak, and am tailoring all these competitions to my abilities??)

Seriously, whatever happened to having to know your shit to work with computers :p Nowadays any loony can boot one up and pretend to be 'computer literate'


--
Rich 'Dicion' Thomas
Quakecon BYOC Staff

Same Disclamer as Worm :p
 
unga said:
dollar/per frames in some sort of PC vid games. Basically who can build the cheapest computer and get the maximum amount of performance out of it.
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worm said:
Why not just have a couple of episodes of "[H]ard Makeover". Morelike the MTV show Pimp My Ride. Pick a couple of terrible rigs and work some [H]ard magic on them. ;)

Scott 'worm' Cray
QuakeCon BYOC Staff

Disclaimer: I don't even speak for myself, much less for QuakeCon
Click to expand...

silence said:
"Geek Eye for the Straight Guy"?

Geek a person out with thinkgeek.com type products for the work cube, add lights to their computer, really loud 120mm fans, simple modding to their computer, stereo upgrade for their car with tv and dvd.

---

Wheel of Geek (ala man show)

Good and bad fates to only those brave enough to spin the wheel. Dinner with a booth babe or win a 486, trade your new video card for a Voodoo 2 non-sli.
Click to expand...
== win :D
 
JethroXP said:
Idea 1. How about a game of "Name that Silicon" where various pieces of hardware are presented to a panel, and they have to "Buzz in" the quickest for the chance to name what it is. This would be really fun if you could get ahold of some old school stuff, like VESA Local Bus cards. Or perhaps a Jeopardy style quiz?
.
Click to expand...

maybe add some questions where the contestents would need to recognize the device by the noise.. nvidia 5800... seagte hard drives.. etc...
 
I got it!!!

The Quakecon "PIMP MY RIG"

Basically take the worst machine there, and give them the comple pimping, Hardware, lights, Casemods, etc!!! (yes, deliberately stolen from MTV's Pimp my Ride." Have a judging panel and everything, With Kyle walking around the BYOC taking people and their machines and making them schweet.

Ok... it sucks, but no one else thought of it, so I had to.
 
How about a contest to see who can build the fastest-booting computer? As in, first computer to get into windows desktop (and maybe you should include the completion of the userinit process as part of the timing?)

I'm not sure how well this would work, since a lot of motherboards with onboard components tend to slow up during the boot process, but I guess doing without onboard chips and still being able to build the fastest booting comp could be part of the challenge :)
 
SulSeeker said:
I got it!!!

The Quakecon "PIMP MY RIG"

Basically take the worst machine there, and give them the comple pimping, Hardware, lights, Casemods, etc!!! (yes, deliberately stolen from MTV's Pimp my Ride." Have a judging panel and everything, With Kyle walking around the BYOC taking people and their machines and making them schweet.

Ok... it sucks, but no one else thought of it, so I had to.
Click to expand...

sorry to burst your bubble...

worm said:
Why not just have a couple of episodes of "[H]ard Makeover". Morelike the MTV show Pimp My Ride. Pick a couple of terrible rigs and work some [H]ard magic on them. ;)

Scott 'worm' Cray
QuakeCon BYOC Staff

Disclaimer: I don't even speak for myself, much less for QuakeCon
Click to expand...
 
Why not an OVERCLOCKING CONTEST...

Say you give teams/individuals a "budget" of say $800 and have a collection of various hardware to see who get get the highest clock, fps on a game, or 3d mark (ick i know 2k3 sucks).

You could have all kinds of fun hardware like mobile XP chips, watercooling setups (probbably like an exos or something self contained to make it simpler). Even that Vaporchill case that will cost you 90% of your budget (so you have to get the ECS board and see how far that can go :) ) hehe.

Or we could have a "Ultimate Mouse Pad" Contest
You could bring in all kinds of foam plastic bits and what not and let people go crazy with dremels and such and err "borrow" the better ideas for the next gen Ratpadz :eek:
 
Something that could be a compition or event that the average attendee could participate in. A DOOM fragfest on modern computers running the DOS versions of DOOM. Imagine the motion sickness!!!

Hummm... working on more... Something fast and easy to do... but would be fun for any who attend.....

Throw the Macintosh. Get an old working mac. Heck a crate of them. Get 10 lucky winners. Have them each make sure the Mac works. Then they each get to throw the mac. The one to toss it the furthest and have it still work wins!!! I dunno maybe apple would dig it and give away an Ibook or something.

Most Ubergeek. Let people know ahead of time to dress as the ultimate geek. But the real deal of this one is. They need to have the most working or not computer parts on them at one time. If anyone is able to take a series of parts on them at the time and make a functioning computer <even a calculator> they are an uber geek. Something like that. They win one of the wearable PC solutions that we have all been reading about from time to time.

NAME THE GAME!!!! Take a series of game motion captures from current to classic and have a name the game compitition... we all know the really old geeks amongst us started down this path to play games faster and better. Would be great fun for those watching too. Make the winnings worth while. PC, Xbox, PS2,and gamecube as well as the leading platform specific game for each. ;) Of course the contest would need to draw from them all and get REALLY obscure. You could in theory have several rounds a day. And a final round the last hour of the con. <this one I think is my favorite> You could even have subcatigories.. name the game song... and from what level/zone does it come from.

A play the game game... Where the user needs to figure out the interface with nothing but the game and the computer it is loaded on. Great nostalgia for any of us older computer gamers that got games..... ummm.... from friends... yea... wihtout manuals.

That's all I can think of right now.
 
How about a Dremel skills compitition. How fast and straight can you cut a case window, how quick to cut a blow hole, that sort of thing.
 
BDS250 said:
How about a Dremel skills compitition. How fast and straight can you cut a case window, how quick to cut a blow hole, that sort of thing.
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How quickly can you remove a finger? Quick yank a shard of dremel wheel from your friends eye!!! This one is a bit riskey!!!
 
Games are fun but these fools need to learn stuff too. BIOS optimization class and windows tweaks for gamers. Why can't my GFFX bust 72fps in counter strike /cry, etc. Person with most drastic improvement in performance after the class winz a faster pc for no money! I'm bitter.
 
dicion said:
Or, how about 'build a useful system mod/component/etc with these radio shack parts' and have a vast selection of radio shack logic IC's, resistors, caps, transistors, etc etc etc...
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lol.. make sure you throw in some bad resistors in the bag.... come to think of it... May as well just have the make the resistors themselves.

Maybe you could have a shopping event. Who can find a vendor with a 6800 ultra in stock and not selling it for more than MSRP.
 
You have all the parts to build a computer.
Set each part in it's own area.

Each team must give directions to a "robot" who will try and assemble the machine following the directions exactly.

The robot only knows certian things.
If you tell it to "put the graphics card in the AGP slot" it's not going to know what to do. However if you tell your robot to "Pick up the 3rd card from the right and place it in the 1st slot from the right (depending on the robot's angle to the motherboard)" it might be able to accomplish the task.

You can make your robot smarter or less smart depending on how hard you want this challenge to be. The robot should not be affiliated with the team that gives the directions as that would be unfair.

Finally, the robot needs all instructions at once, it does not remember stuff very long and hates to wait.

The first team to complete (or fastest if more then one) would win whatever prize.

Depending on age level, I might even suggest classes of competition.
 
The AT(X-Factor) Comp:

Give the contestants a NASTY ole' AT case, ATX Power supply, various ATX components, a bunch of hand tools, modding gear (fans, lights, spray paint, blah, blah) and a couple of hours.

Prizes for:

First person to build a working ATX system in an AT case
Best looking/modded AT(X)
etc...
 
How about a timed PC building contest, only blind folded. Give your guys a list of the hardware that Is SUPPOSED to be in the machine and then mix each part in a pile of others of the same (ie a single athlon in a pile of pentiums or K6s). First person to construct their PC and post (all while still blind folded) wins.


Or, highest temperature PC. have 5 machines and each contestant has to try and get the highest possible case temperature. in a given amount of time.


Just a few thoughts
 
Ok, I'm just sort of thinking out loud now:

The SFF relay - teams of 4 or more relay a SFF machine around the hall (make it a good 100 ft or more they each have to move) and then hook up the machine, play through a level of Doom3, then unhook it and hand it off to the next guy. First team to finish the course wins. This would test your rapid deployment LAN Party skills :)

Not sure if Alcohol is allowed, but you could run a Doom3 tournament, where the winners of each round have to quickly consume a beer (or similar adult beverage) before moving on to the next round. By the time the two finalists meet, they'll be pretty hammered and it would make for Interesting viewing on the big screens :)
 
skiddex said:
how about an old school computer building competition, people would have to know something about 3D pass though cards, matched pair sims, 2.1gb limits of fat16, AT power supplies. something to hold true for people who were here before ATX.

Or a computer with server needs, setting up for raid 5, or setting scsi ids...something for the HARDCORE hardware people.
Click to expand...

Hey, great idea, and watch people struggle as they try and work out how to put a slot 1-based CPU in...

Or maybe a case moding contest, where people are given a crappy case and have to mod it as quick as they can for good looks, airflow etc? Tests their creativity and modding skills. First person to get it done wins, but also have a People's Choice award (get the crowd involved)?
 
JethroXP said:
Not sure if Alcohol is allowed, but you could run a Doom3 tournament, where the winners of each round have to quickly consume a beer (or similar adult beverage) before moving on to the next round. By the time the two finalists meet, they'll be pretty hammered and it would make for Interesting viewing on the big screens :)
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Finally a way I could beat that Fatal1ty guy.. or however he spells his name. :p
 
I like the "[H]ard Makeover" Also a plain old mod contest bring in what you got and let the [H] pick one :)


lame I know but I have no time to mess with this :D :D


thanx
 
Why not do a Scavenger Hunt sort of thing? YOu know have a list of items/hardware for people to find and take pics of. First 3 teams win prizes of some sort.

Everybody wins due to the fun factor and the prizes awarded.


Just a thought.
 
MoFo said:
I like the "[H]ard Makeover" Also a plain old mod contest bring in what you got and let the [H] pick one :)


lame I know but I have no time to mess with this :D :D


thanx
Click to expand...

How about an "Extreme [H]ard Makeover" ? Would win the "Reality contest of the year".
 
hows about fewest fps in quake3. you bring you junky old computer and run quake3 with a set demo and the fewest frames wins a fabolus new computer part.
 
3 words...

Beer Bong comp!

EDIT: or even better, Bring wemen and have a "whos computer can wet a T-Shirt fastest Comp"
 
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