TerribleHack 2025:
AI (Artificial Ignorance)

An event for making bad ideas a reality. April 26, 2025.

Made possible by Inter/Access and Creative Code Toronto

Join the event

What is TerribleHack?

Most hackathons are about coming up with innovative new ideas and making plausible startup prototypes. This one is different. This one is about making terrible hacks! Take some time to make your bad ideas a reality.

We have a long history of TerribleHack shenanigans, both in person and virtual!

Read about TerribleHack's history

Where is it?

This year, InterAccess will be hosting TerribleHack! It will be on Saturday April 26 from 11am to 6pm. InterAccess is a gallery and studio that also graciously hosts Creative Code Toronto events. TerribleHack will happen at their space on 950 Dupont St, Toronto. Check out their gallery while you're at the event!

How it's going to work

InterAccess opens at 11am. From then until the evening, the space will be open for you to work on a project! Feel free to show up with teammates if you have them, or just on your own. In the late afternoon and evening, take a turn at the projector to demo your work!

Who are we?

TerribleHack started in 2015 by students at the University of Waterloo, eager to temporarily break away from the pressure and professionalism of traditional hackathons.

Now, Creative Code Toronto has taken up the torch. Creative Code Toronto hosts monthly meetups for people using code as a creative medium, including casual work sessions and talks. TerribleHack is an opportunity to explore the less serious side of code!

Inspiration

What sorts of projects do people make at TerribleHack? Here are some of our favourites from past events!

DabCoin

Proof-of-dab based cryptocurrency. It's like proof of work, but you can only mine blocks if the data from your device accelerometer indicates that you are dabbing.

By Marcel O'Neil, David Gu, and Curtis Chong for TerribleHack XI, 2018

LastSecondSlides

Use the Google speech-to-text API to generate presentation slides as you talk! Turn what you say into bullet points and fetch clipart from the internet live as you speak.

By Tristan Hume and Marc Mailhot for TerribleHack IV, 2016

Smoke Detector Detector

Smoke detectors are disruptive and annoying, so to warn you about nearby smoke detectors, this machine starts a fire, listens for smoke detector alarms, and then alerts you when it detects a smoke detector.

By Spencer Whitehead, Alex Foley, Ethan Guo, and Scholar Sun for TerribleHack VI, 2017

Water Bird Dating Simulator

Don't lie, you've always wanted to flirt with a goose. There's something devilishly appealing about their bad boy attitudes. And now you can, with this steamy game!

By Ena Bukal, Maddy Leadbetter and Yangzi Guo for TerribleHack VR, 2020

Take a look at past demos on YouTube or one of our many old Devposts for more inspiration. You can also read about the event's history, which is also pretty dank.

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...and also join the Creative Code Toronto discord!

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