Hack Days at Odopod is an incredible time of year. For 48 hours, we shut down the office, turn inward and focus on our own ideas. It’s a chance for us to build the kind of things that our clients don't ask for every day and just invent.

It starts off a few weeks prior with an open call for ideas. Eight are picked and small teams are formed to produce the projects over two days. Everybody takes part - designers, developers, producers and strategists - all racing toward the same intense deadline, with a heightened sense of focus, creative energy and collaboration.

The culmination of Hack Days is a series of prototypes and proofs-of-concept. Here are the results...

Odopod Sign

The Odopod Sign is an homage to the classic letter board welcome sign displayed in our lobby. In this digital version, posts from a special Twitter account with special hashtags display events, news, visitors and other relevant messages on a giant screen. The final creation is a screen saver app designed to run on all of the conference room computers for employees and visitors alike to see what's happening right now at Odopod.

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Hayes Valley Menu

The Hayes Valley Menu is a real-time social aggregate of up-to-the minute information about food choices in Odopod's Hayes Valley neighborhood. Use the app to find out which food trucks are parked nearby, what seasonal ice cream flavors Smitten is serving, what local specials restaurants are having, hours of operation and even reviews of specific dishes.

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Kinect Interactive Window

The Interactive Window is a Processing application that uses Microsoft Kinect to capture the motion of people's bodies and allows them to control objects in a scene projected on the windows of our office. Features include multiple-person modes, simple games, gestures and dances.

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Crowd Eye

Crowd Eye is an instant multi-camera broadcasting experience where users can download the app at an event and stream their point of view to a live projection. A Director can send group or private messages to each camera, control which views are being projected and manage multiple projections around an event.

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I Solemnly Dare

We live in a state of Badge Hysteria, where your friends can and will earn badges simply by checking in or pressing a button. But what if the badge itself was something worth fighting for? "I Solemnly Dare" lets you dare friends to earn badges that will test their integrity, willpower and hutzpah in a social setting that's both purposeful and playful.

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SqueezePhone

The SqueezePhone infuses a vintage rotary phone with the functionality of the 
Squeezebox interface to control our music library. People can select a genre, artist or album through speaking into the antique phone's handset and control things like next, previous and volume through the phone's rotary dial.

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Odopod Timeline

The Odopod Timeline is a place to share and catalog the last 10 years; from the early days when the founders defined a new kind of digital shop, to the groundbreaking work we’ve produced recently. Using the new Facebook Timeline, the project highlights important moments in the company's history by featuring interesting data and stats, stories, and media from our network of current employees and alumni.

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Guided Camera

The guided camera is a mobile app that easily enables people to make fun animated experiences starring themselves, their friends and the rest of the world in a simple and exciting, "guided" way. The final execution of the idea is a music video maker for an upcoming release of a band's new single where users are guided through a series of dance moves and facial expressions.

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That's it! It was hard work, there were late nights and everybody charged full speed to the end. We can't wait to do it again next year.