Mini Case Study

A shockingly good
hack project

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The Problem

Here at Si digital, we love a challenge, so we often work on hack projects to push our skills further. So, we thought it would be fun to set up a mechanism to deliver randomised electric shocks to people in the office whenever we were tweeted by the public.

The Solution

We used customised joke shop shock lighters to deliver the shocks (with some tin foil and wiring), and our tame office robot, Sid, to administer the punishments. Whenever a tweet was received, our code randomly selected a member of the Si team to be electrocuted.

At the precise moment of each shock, the cameras on our iMacs captured the punishment being carried out and promptly tweeted it to the shock dealer.

The Result

We live-streamed the entire event, which began at 9am on Halloween, and continued until after 6pm—as the US audience joined in. Every minute, we delivered shocks and posted them on Twitter for the world to see.

Queues of people formed, eager to participate in delivering electric shocks. We even heard that we were being broadcast on screens in agencies in London. Needless to say, we didn’t sleep well that night.

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