This wall will host live ONLYHACKS for the ONLYWEIRD '26 submissions once the window opens. Until then it's the inspiration board — projects close to the flavour we're after. Consider them invitations. Do not consider them rubrics.
Soft close 20 Jun 08:30 ET. Hard close 20 Jun 09:00 ET. The door does not negotiate.
A bash script that boils water by curling a smart kettle. Takes 14 minutes. You cannot stop it. It returns exit code 0.
Small, complete, beautifully documented. Installs in one line. Boils water through six different async transports.
An oscilloscope visualisation of your terminal history weighted by `git revert` frequency. Drawn on a CRT. A real one.
Maps the rhythm of your commit graveyard to a sine wave on an analog scope. Ships with photos of the rig and a 30-second Loom.
Logs you in if your webcam picture has the right vibe. Trained on 4 images of the developer. 81% accurate.
Unironically functional. Terrifyingly accurate at recognising "early morning" vs "post-lunch" you. Ships with a confession.
A shell that responds in 5-7-5 haiku. Every command. Every error. Every man page.
The haiku for `rm -rf /` is genuinely upsetting. So are the haiku for `ls`. So are the haiku for everything. It is good.
The entire project is a 3-minute live demo. There is no repository. You cannot install it. You had to be there.
Could win a category despite (because of) shipping precisely zero source code. The demo IS the artefact.
A real vending machine dispensing real snacks AND unsolicited career advice via a thermal printer. Built to be demoed live on the finals stream.
Picture it: insert $1.25, receive a granola bar and a sentence such as "your refactor will not save you, only joy will".
A cron job that, once a week, posts a short confession to your team's Slack from a generic bot account. The confessions are real.
Features a moderation step where you approve each one. You usually approve them at 1am. They are weird.
A one-page site that plays the static between FM stations as ambient audio. The static cycles. You can leave it open.
It is just a webpage that plays static. It is genuinely calming. CSS is perfect. Type is perfect. Footer: "i am sorry, this is the project."
A webpage that visualises atmospheric pressure as a slowly heaving div. No JS. CSS gradient driven off geolocation + remote feed.
Opens to a perfectly still page. You do not notice it is breathing until you go away and come back.
When submissions open, real projects take over this wall. The slot is yours.
From your dashboard, hit "new submission". The form is two fields: title and category. You can rename later.
One-time hook. Drops a small file in your repo so OW can verify the build is real. Takes 30 seconds.
The most important deliverable. Demo the artefact actually running. One take is fine. One take is, in fact, recommended.
What is it, how do you run it, what made it weird. One paragraph minimum. One page maximum.
Before 20 Jun 09:00 ET. The button will, at that exact moment, become unclickable.
Full submission requirements live in rules · § submissions.