Timed, competitive, and open to anyone in the room
Build stations run all day at your own pace. Challenges have a clock, a crowd and a winner. You can do both.
The MaKey MaKey Tux Kart Challenge
Here is the whole thing. You have a table of junk: cardboard, foil, clay, tape, a banana. You make a game controller out of it. Then you plug your controller into a Raspberry Pi and race Super Tux Kart, a free go-kart game, on a four-track circuit against everybody else who built one.
The controller is the fun part and the reason people come back. A banana that steers left is funnier than a good lap time, and it wins its own award.
- 1 Pick your materials. 10 minutes at the junk table. Take more than you think you need.
- 2 Build the controller. 20 minutes, clipped to a MaKey MaKey board. You need four working directions and one button.
- 3 Test it and fix it. Something will not work the first time. That is the normal part, and a Jam Maker is right there.
- 4 Race. Four tracks, one lap each, everyone watching. Then awards.
Most creative wins as often as fastest
Speed breadboard
Same circuit, same parts, everybody starts together. First working light wins. Beginners run in their own heat, so you are not racing somebody who has done it for years.
- Time
- 15 minutes
- Ages
- 10 and up
- Entry
- Sign up at the bench
- Watching
- Welcome
Remaining challenges published January 2027
Tux Kart is confirmed. The rest of the competitive programme is still being set. Leave an email and we tell you when it is final, well before you need to plan a Saturday.