(2023) 100 ideas

What Is the 100-Day Project? It’s a celebration of process that encourages everyone to participate in 100 days of making. The great surrender is the process; showing up day after day is the goal. For the 100-Day Project, it’s not about fetishizing finished products—it’s about the process. https://www.the100dayproject.org/

Back in 2015, I participated in a 100 day project where I would create a new simple project every day and post it to social media. The experience was incredibly rewarding, as it kept me motivated to keep making things and pushed me to explore new tools and techniques. In 2015 I had the resources of a maker space and I was really excited about a new tool I was learning (laser cutter). This series of projects was a great opportunity to really get to know a tool on a deeper level and really become an expert in it.

I have been struggling figuring out a new project to repeat the 100 day project with. I don’t have a new tool that I am excited about or a huge amount of time to invest. What I do have is a large backlog of dumb project ideas

For the next 100 days I will come up with a new project pitch and post it to my blog every day. I will be asking the public for feedback. My goal is to solicit feedback and get a better sense of what ideas have value. As well as get better at idea creation in hopes of finding a good idea that is worth pursuing.

The post would have the following sections

One Line Pitch - A one line pitch that can be posted on twitter with a link back to a blog post.
Description - This is the actual description of the idea, with rough drawings and photos, etc. Rough timeline and resources needed - What I would need to do to make this idea a reality. Problem, and Solution, How to make money
Prior art - What has already been done in this field, where can I draw ideas from,
Market - Who would use this ideas (Not who would buy this), What is the market size

2023-January-28 to 2023 May 07

100 ideas project retrospective (2023)

100 Ideas

Day 001 - Cherry Blossom Profile Photo Booths - Set up a photo booth in a park when the cherry blossoms are blooming, offer to take free portrait photos to the public and use the experience to get better at portrait photography 🌸📸
Day 002 - Electronic Flute PCB - A product for music lovers and DIY enthusiasts alike. This PCB is designed to be a customizable electronic flute that uses a tiny mems microphone and several buttons to create sound 🎶🎹
Day 003 - PCB Art of Every Mammal in BC - A series of PCB art badges, one for each mammal in BC. Each badge has a small sensor and some LEDs that relate to the mammal. Make a limited edition series of each mammal and show off the series at an art show. 🐁🦫🦝🐺🐇
Day 004 - Universal Serial breakout board - A single USB to Serial port board that supports many different physical layers. TTL 3.3v, 5v, RS232, RS485 2wire and 4 wire. DB9, DB25, Screw down terminals, etc 🔌
Day 005 - Scream Photo Booth - A photo booth where the camera is only triggered when you scream loud enough. Producing a photo with real emotions 😱📸
✅ Day 006 - Procedurally generated Glowing Mushroom PCB - Procedurally generated Art PCB of mushrooms for the GameOfShrroms art project. Backlit LEDs to add a nice glowing effect. 🍄
Day 007 - Emoji Macro Pad Keyboard - A macro pad keyboard with most commonly used Emoji as key caps for quick access when you want to respond to a message with an iconography 👍⌨️
✅ Day 008 - Reconnect a post card project - People are disconnected more than ever and need a reason to reconnect with each other. Create a series of postcards and send packs of them to friends and family, for them to send onwards ✉️
Day 009 - Princess Peach castle stained glass window - Before the Mario movie release date, create a replica of the princess Peach castle stained glass window using the digital stained glass method. 🏰
Day 010 - Polyhedron Papercraft Mobile - Create a mobile of regular polyhedrons and other geometry shapes using paper craft 🟩♦️📃
Day 011 - Birdhouse Crypto Puzzle - Homes for birds, and puzzles for humans 🐦🏚️
Day 012 - LED Constellation Star map - Pinhole overlapping constellation map with leds 💡⭐
Day 013 - Speech to Text, always listening, ear badge - An electronic badge in the shape of an ear that listens then does speech to text recording using OpenAI Whisper, 24 hours a day. Data is used to create a personalized AI virtual assistant on your own data 👂🗣️
Day 014 - AI Pictionary - Like, Pictionary but an AI draws the picture and you try and guess the prompt that was used to generate the picture 🤖🖼️
Day 015 - AI Create your own story book - AI generated a personalized story book that incorporates information that you provide, following the common story types. Hero’s journey, etc, made for kids 📖🤖
Day 016 - Lego RGB Addressable LED blocks - Adding fully addressable RGB light to your lego creation, using lego as light pipes
Day 017 - Traveling 3D printed sculptures - Traveling art exhibit of all the sculptures from a single great master 3d printed in marble 🗽
Day 018 - Just the tip skyscraper coffee table book - A photo book of just the tops of very tall buildings, just the top few flors, just the tip 🏛️🏢
Day 019 - Big Red Button - Create a series of buttons with labels, install them around the city, see what ones get pushed most 🔘
Day 020 - Many styles of Vancouver - A photo of Vancouver’s skyline with each building painted over in a different artistic style 🌇🎨🖌️
Day 021 - AI auto summarization / Auto cliffsnotes - Use AI to summarize large amounts of information into brief notes and key points 🤖✏️
✅ Day 022 - Translink map PCB - A live interactive translink metro map of Vancouver using LEDs on a PCB 🗺️
Day 023 - Light painting rod - A programmable strip of LEDs that can be attached on a rod for light painting 🎨
Day 024 - Call to Adventure - A mystery letter is delivered filled with puzzles that need to be solved in order to give directions to a meeting place for the start of an adventure 🧩🧩
✅ Day 025 - Skull card game - Laser cut or PCB fancy versions of the Skull card game 💀
Day 026 - Digger game - Resource management, worker placement, exploration tile game. ⚒️🪨
Day 027 - Print on demand Keyboard Keycaps - A website that lets users upload their own glyphs/images for the top of keycaps ⌨️
Day 028 - Finite Future Clock - Experience the passage of time in a new light with our death clock a stunning LED panel that visualizes the preciousness of life as it counts down Serves as a unique conversation starter and an amazing visualization of life itself ☠️⌚
Day 029 - Sprout Swipe - Use cell phone sensors to create a filtered list of suitable plants for a space then show the plants using Augmented Reality. Dating app for plants 🌱📱
Day 030 - Chatbot Journaling - A chatbot that gives you writing prompts for daily journaling. Ask follow up questions for clarity. Builds a web of knowledge about you and gives feedback. 🤖✏️📖
Day 031 - Fabric floral Cyberpunk Armor - Following the pattern of a japanese cloth armor from the 1800s, make modern cyberpunk equivalent armor for raves 🤖
Day 032 - Cistercian stained glass Swatch internet .beat clock - A segmented display that combines a forgotten numbering system and a method for telling time that no one uses 🕛
Day 033 - AI Grant Writing - Use AI to help with labor intensive grant writing. 🤖✍️💰
Day 034 - 20 questions for people - A website that asks you 20 questions and tries to uniquely identify you in the world. What are the optimal questions to ask? ❓🤔
Day 035 - Update your address book automatically - Get your contacts to update their information in your address book 📔ℹ️
Day 036 - Kaleidoscope Chandler - Light shines through colored glass that rotates to produce washes of colors on the ceiling
Day 037 - Chatbot Task Organizer - A chatbot that can organize simple tasks by date, location, or person 📃✔️
Day 038 - Club House co-op - Membership owned club house that can be used for members use. 🏠
Day 039 - Growth - A game - A game where you start as the smallest living thing and grow and expand until you conquer every other living thing 🧬🌱🪴
Day 040 - Growth Commander - Tower defense - Your incharge of mutations and creation of your army. You send your army out to collect food, and battle enemies. Tower defense style game without towers. 🧬🌱🪴
Day 041 - BioPunks Garden - You’re a Biopunk building their garden by selectively breeding for DNA markers in plants. 🧬🌱🪴
Day 042 - GPIO tester breakout board - A 8 position dip switches breakout board ⚡
Day 043 - BACnet MSTP Testing conference Badge - A convention badge for BACnet plugfest that is useful for testing ⚒️
Day 044 - Bio Punk Conference badge - A electronic badge that lets you mix your badge’s pet’s DNA with others 🧬
Day 045 - Spread your genes - A game that rewards you for spreading your DNA to as many other players as possible 🧬
✅ Day 046 - Cherry Blossom Timelapse - Take several time lapse videos of the Cherry Blossom park while its blooming 📷🎥
Day 047 - Weekly Scavenger Hunt - An automatically weekly generated global scavenger hunt with leaderboard 🗺️📷🎥
Day 048 - The beat of the crowd - badge - Radio badge that pulses when other badges are nearby 💡
Day 049 - Cheap meals if you follow directions - Betting against consumers on human nature 💵🍽️
✅ Day 050 - Tessellating Illuminated Origami Wall Sculpture - Origami Sacred Geometry + Individually addressable RGB LEDs + Wall Sculpture + interactive ⭐💡
Day 051 - Enigma machine kit - Recreate the German Enigma machine cipher device as a kit using PCBs 🖥️❓
Day 052 - Landscape Table - A coffee table with a CNC topographical map with contour and elevation lines ☕🍵
Day 053 - HTML and CSS photo book for Blurb - Instead of using Blurb publishing tools create the book using HTML and CSS 📖
Day 054 - Digital Dices - A dice that when rolled shows a random number within a range on a screen 🎲🎲
Day 055 - Truchet tessellating bathroom tiles - Elevate your bathroom or kitchen with unique and meaningful ceramic tiles inspired by mathematical shapes and designs that are both visually stunning and tell a story ⭐🟧🔶🔷🔴🔺
Day 056 - Great people make great movies - A movie recommendation site based on the people who work on movies 🍿🎥🎞️📽️🎬🎦
Day 057 - Movie Mogul Mania - A fantasy movie league where players draft actors and films to earn points based on award nominations and wins, box office sales, and other movie statistics. 💵💰🎬📽️
Day 058 - In a million parts - Transformative art series based on quotable lines from books, movies, or songs 🎶🎥📚
Day 059 - Alices Adventures in Wonderland in a million parts - Stained glass windows for each location in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland 🥛🎨🖼️
Day 060 - The Little Prince in a million parts - Layered paper craft light boxes of the different chapters of The Little Prince 📃👑
Day 061 - The Dark Side Of The Moon in a million parts - Generative line drawings in sand based on the album The Dark Side Of The Moon by Pink Floyd ⌛
Day 062 - Music festival dancing painting robotic marionettes in a million parts - A robotic marionettes that dances and makes generative art during a music festival 🪆🎎
Day 063 - RootedIn - A generated a social media platform for trees in a city 🌲🌳🌴
Day 064 - Inflatable crowd - A crowd of mini wacky inflatable arm man (Air Dancers) in a matrix controlled by sound 🎈🎈
✅ Day 065 - Atari Space Invaders LED Matrix pendent - A necklace penchant that has a LED matrix that displays Atari Space Invaders animations 👾👾
Day 066 - Tilt Pacman - Use a accelerometer to control pacman on a LED Matrix 🍥
Day 067 - Deadmans vault SAAS SafePassage - End-to-end encrypted digital vault for storing and sharing sensitive information after death ☠️⚰️⚱️
Day 068 - Talking Toy story teller - Connect ChatGPT to Text to Voice application inside a Furby/teady bear style robotic pet 🐻🗣️
✅ Day 069 - One Liners - All the bad one liner ideas that wont get developed into anything 💩
Day 070 - CNC Pointillism - Use a CNC to make paint dot paintings one dot at a time 🎨🖌️🖼️
Day 071 - Levitating 3D Mouse - Using magnets coils to levitate the mouse in the air, and 9 degrees of freedom sensors to detect motion 🖱️🐁
Day 072 - Reminders for basic body needs - A sensor that can tell you when you are hungry or dehydrated, and other basic human needs ⌚💦
Day 073 - Glowing tentacle eyeball monster - Glowing tentacle monster made out of flexible vinyl ducting and LEDs. 💡
Day 074 - Dandelion Galaxy - An art installation of a sphere of LEDS that show the night sky from outside earth 💡🌎⭐
Day 075 - Birdnet festival mesh network - A mesh network of birdhouses that chirp messages to each other entered in by festival goers 🗣️🐥
Day 076 - The Vancouver Tone - Give Vancouver its own unique tone by installing wind chime like devices in the trees across the city 🏙️🔊
✅ Day 077 - Equilateral triangles LED panels - Create equilateral triangles LED panels to construct LED polyhedron shapes 🔺🔻
Day 078 - House to Tree house telephone system - Connect old style phones together in a point to point telephone network 📞☎️
Day 079 - Gorilla water quality monitoring device - Citizen science water quality monitoring device 💧🔍
Day 080 - Real Identity provider - A identify provider for all digital platforms 🧑
Day 081 - Experience confidence scores - Allows people to assert their experience with a skill with 3rd parties confidence score 👍👎
Day 082 - Classic video games maps posters - A poster of level maps for classic 80s and 90s video games, nostalgia 🖼️
Day 083 - Dried flower art installation - A staircase tunnel of glowing dried flowers 🌼🌻🌺💐🌹🌷🌸💮
Day 084 - Pressed lotus flower lamp - A lamp made of acrylic shards of pressed flowers in the shape of a lotus flower 🌼🌻🌺💐🌹🌷🌸💮
Day 085 - Carved wooden postcards - Sending a Baltic birch plywood postcard via the Canadian post of every mammal in BC 🐁🦫🦝🐺🐇
Day 086 - Origami Terrarium Diorama - Paper sculptures in glass terrarium with flowers, house plants, and other nature things 🌼🌻🌺💐🌹🌷🌸💮
Day 087 - Crowd sourced life planner - A website that uses flowcharts and other tools for helping with life choices. Crowd sourced, choose your own adventure style 📅↩️↪️
Day 088 - Glass room of perspectives - A art installation where a user enters a room that looks like the inside of a kaleidoscope 🔍
Day 089 - Wheres Wren? - A “Where’s Waldo” hunt and search photo book that teaches people how to ID local species of birds. 🐦🐔🦃🐓🐤🐤🦢🦆🦅🕊️🐧🐥
Day 090 - Dead Bug electronic circuits jigs - Create a series of 3D printed jigs for making exploded electronic circuits without PCBs 🪲
Day 091 - Honeypot terrarium - Visualization of robots as they attack critical infrastructure 🪲
Day 092 - Command line tools as desktop applications - Desktop application UI wrapped around common Windows Linux MacOS command line tools ⚒️
Day 093 - Video Quotes and Truisms - A video series of puppets saying common quotes and truisms 🎥
✅ Day 094 - Quickest way to rank a list of ideas - Use a sorting algorithm to efficiently sort a list of ideas/projects/people/things in order ↪️↩️
Day 095a - Light Graffiti Projector - Cheap and easy way of projecting a message onto a building 🔦
Day 095b - Dot Matrix water printer bike carriage - A horizontal matrix of 16 water nozzles in a grid on bike carriage to draw with water on the sidewalk 💦🚲
Day 096 - Boom numbers go up - Top down survival game where everything can be leveled up 📈⬆️
Day 097 - Modern decoder ring - A modern decoder ring that uses strong modern cryptography encryption methods 💍🧩
Day 098 - All that are lost - GeoHashing on a pendant for exploring the world 🗺️
Day 099 - Stevens projects club - Patreon subscription for people receive one of Steven’s projects twice a year ✉️📬
Day 100 - Lavender Farm - Creating a lavender farm for essential oils as a retirement project 🧑‍🌾💐
Day 100+ - 100 Plus - All of the ideas that didn’t make the cut or I thought of after the project was done

Steven Smethurst

100 Ideas