With the holidays competition deadline now in the past, it is time to celebrate everyone who submitted a project with a round-up of everyone's fantastic, festive creations!
If you have not yet taken a look at every project, now is your chance to click through and check them out!
I will be including every project submitted and in no particular order. Let’s get started…
Converting an LED candle to 9v
ntewinkel submitted two projects to the competition and the first project addresses the issue of what to do with leftover 9v batteries from smoke detectors that are still usable – convert an LED candle to run on these 9v batteries! Nice way to cut down a little on all the AA batteries that LED candles normally require 
Christmas Lights Tester
ntewinkel 's second project provides a solution for another common issue – how do you identify the burnt out lights on a string of Christmas lights? Create a simple circuit with two AA batteries in series which individual bulbs can be added into to check if they light up or not.
LED show on holiday nights
me_Cris created a 4x4x grid of 64 LEDs, combining it with an ATMega328P and an open-source program to put on a bright, exciting light show. Be sure to watch the video!
GSM-Based Decorative lights control
What do you do if you want to switch your Christmas light on/off remotely, your lights are in an area with low or no internet availability, and/or mobile networks are congested during the festive period? If you are Shishir , then you switch your Christmas lights on/off using a phone call or SMS!
Cinnamin’s Marshmallow Surprise: An Elf on the Shelf Talking Animatronic Storybook
robogary created a talking Christmas storybook with TP223B capacitive touch switches on each page triggering an audio track of that part of the story. Plus, there is an animatronic sit-up elf, Cinnamin, who sits up and launches marshmallows at listeners.
GIFT-O-TRON!
battlecoder used a Raspberry Pi Pico, a 16x2 LCD, and a push button to create a gift idea generator, housing it inside a suitably festive, gift-wrapped cardboard box with a 3D-printed button cap on top of the push button. The system for creating the gift suggestions has 150 base gift items that get combined with 20 themes, 50 styles and 20 sizes to generate around 1 million combinations such as…a huge viking alarm clock, a cruelty-free doormat, a real size teapot, a pocket tactical chair, or an incredibly small kettle.
FestiveBoard – A Holiday Lights Mechanical Keyboard
taifur designed and built a mechanical keyboard with dynamic, holiday-themed lighting that they could use every day. Nice touch placing the Raspberry Pi Pico below a window in the plate layer of the keyboard so the Pico remains fully visible after assembly.
Using AI to welcome and entertain guests with music and mechanical animation
embeddedguy made a device to greet guests at their front door. When a Unihiker K10 detects the human faces of arriving guests, it play festive music and triggers a servo motor to give visitors a ‘wave’.
VIBE Coding for Capybara's Merry Christmas
fyaocn created a festive, hand-drawn capybara-themed micro-diorama with an Arduino Zero powering twinkling LEDs on the tiny tree, a servo that wiggles the cake flag, and a buzzer that plays soft carols.
DigiPclock - a Digital Pocket Clock
vishalsoniindia uses an ESP32, a GC9A01 LCD display, a 600mAh battery, and a 3D-printed enclosure to create a digital pocket watch. To preserve its 4-day battery, the time can be viewed by pressing a button on the right-hand side of the watch which wakes the ESP32 from sleep mode and shows the time. As soon as the button is released, the watch goes back to sleep.
NorthPole Navigator
arvindsa created a festive, hide and seek-style game for locating presents using a BLE tracker and beacon with a PCB featuring the ESP32, WS2812B, MCP73831 (Battery Charger), AP2112K (3.3V LDO). The Beacon advertises for 1.5 seconds and sleeps for 15 seconds. The tracker scans for 20 seconds and sleeps for 10 seconds. As the tracker gets closer to the beacon, it will flashes faster and faster. A Christmas tree-shaped LED spiral functions as a scoreboard for good deeds.
North Pole Welcome Gate
Anyone visiting the north pole might just discover Hacktech 's interactive North Pole Welcome Gate which they put together using an ESP32-S3 with LEDs, TFT animations, and SD-card audio. When visitors are detected, festive voice lines are initially played. Then, visited are assigned a Christmas work role (for example, Elf, Reindeer Handler, Toy Engineer, or Cookie Inspector). Finally, visitors are asked to complete a quick challenge (clap the required number of times within a short time window while the LEDs act as a visual timing/progress indicator).
Smart RGB Snowflake Ornament
meera_hussien designed a custom PCB shaped like a snowflake with a colored silkscreen. The front side is populated with RGB LEDs to create dynamic lighting effects, while the back side houses the core electronics, the whole design finished with a snowflake-shaped 3D-printed enclosure.
PCB DIYA because Diwali is coming
Arnovsharma made a custom DIYA-themed PCB powered by an Attiny13 which emulates a flickering flame using two different LED Driving Mosfets that turn on and off LEDs in a sequence.
Very well done again to everyone who submitted a project to the Holidays hackathon!
With the round-up complete, it is almost time to announce the winners. Stay tuned…
I am conscious that some folks might still be working on their project which is great. If there are any changes you would like me to make to your project’s description here then that is no problem at all. Drop me a message and I will update this
