Overview

At StupidHackathon, I worked with a small team to build a guitar-shaped smashing machine. The idea was intentionally playful and absurd, but the implementation required serious embedded and mechanical engineering.

Our goal was to automate a mechanical arm that could repeatedly smash items with a guitar-like device, triggered by software running on a development board.

Technical Approach

• Embedded Platform – STM32: We used an STM32 development board as the main controller for the mechanical arm.
• Python-Controlled Workflow: I wrote Python tooling to orchestrate and test the firmware running on the STM32, making it easier to iterate quickly on motor control behavior.
• Motor & Arm Control: Implemented control logic to drive the mechanical arm, tuning timing and motion so the guitar-shaped head could reliably hit and "smash" target objects.
• Safety & Reliability: Added basic safeguards (limits on motion, cooldown between strikes) so the arm could run repeatedly without damaging the hardware.

Collaboration & Role

I focused primarily on the embedded software and control logic:

• Prototyped the STM32 firmware and Python tooling.
• Integrated sensor/motor behavior with the mechanical design created by teammates.
• Helped debug hardware/software interactions under tight hackathon time constraints.

Outcome

We successfully demoed the guitar-smashing machine at StupidHackathon, showcasing a fun, over-the-top project that combined mechanical design, embedded programming, and Python scripting into a single, automated system.