For HackNotts ‘84 (which took place in 2023), we wanted to do something with hardware.

Our plan was to make a cloud chamber - a scientific instrument for detecting particles emitted during radioactive decay - and somehow generate music from this.

We… got as far as making the cloud chamber. If you have a look at the first photo on this page, you can see a white streak (highlighted). This is most likely a cosmic ray.

Problem was, there isn’t much radiation to pick up. This, combined with an extremely janky setup, gave unremarkable results. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a cool thing! Just, we couldn’t really show it off.

Anyway, it was a really fun hackathon. It was the first HackNotts I’ve actually hacked at (not organised!) since 2019, which was a nice change.

If you’re interested, more details of our process can be found on our Devpost page.