Ahoy, mateys! 🏴‍☠️

Between Black Friday and Cyber Monday we’ll be giving away over £2,500 in Pimoroni Shop Gift Cards and other treasure!

Each day, from 9am to 5pm (GMT), we’ll be dropping a fresh challenge on Bluesky. You’ll have one hour to complete it and post your entry with the hashtag #yarrbooty.

Keep your spyglass on this page, as we’ll list each challenge here as it appears. Ready to plunder some prizes? Let’s set sail! 

For each challenge, we’ll crown a Winner, a Runner-Up, and—if submissions are especially stellar—one or two Special Mentions. Here’s the booty up for grabs:

• Winner: £100 gift card
• Runner Up: £50 gift card
• Special Mention: £25 gift card

And on Sunday, we’re pulling out the big guns with a special all-day challenge—the winner will score an epic Picade MAX! 🎮

Follow us on Bluesky to stay updated on each challenge as it starts, @pimoroni.com.

GOOD LUCK! 🏴‍☠️ xoxo

TODAY: Cyber Monday (2nd Dec)

• 9am: Convert This! - SCIENCE: You, a great scientist, think you can turn X into Y. Choose an X & Y, then make a poster plausibly explaining why you need a million pounds for research.
  
  Whoops: Monday morning was too much for you all to manage! 😂 We've rolled the prizes into the 11am challenge DOUBLING them!

• 11am: Cyberpunk Chic - TECH: Post a selfie dressed as a hacker from a Neuromancer dystopian future. Neon, mirror shades, cyberdecks and wild cyber-augmentations are the order of the day.
  
  Winner: @tinkerermom.bsky.social - gone all out with outfit and accessories 😎
  Runner Up: @fortoffee.bsky.social - bonus points for the functional gadgets!
  Special Mention: @knaveen.bsky.social - for sneaking in a piratical theme!
  
  
• 1pm: Ruth's Request - ENGINEERING: Guest challange from top Engineer @RuthAmos of @KidsInventStuff: "Make a Rube Goldberg machine from simple household items."
  
  Winner: @anguswallis.bsky.social - dear god don't ever do that again! 😱 terrifying...
  Runner Up: @tinkerermom.bsky.social - a nice little run! & @knaveen.bsky.social ditto!

Previous Results!

Black Friday (29th Nov)

• 9am: Scientific Creativity - SCIENCE: Demonstrate any scientific principle in a unique and charming way. Be it a drawing, poem, photo, video, audio, whatever!
  
  Winner: @‪unfinishedstuff.bsky.social‬ a great device that includes two things that we love - our Yukon and LEGO! <3
  Runner Up: @claireprice.bsky.social for a fascinating model. BLEW. OUR. MINDS.
  Special Mention: @rgill-1.bsky.social for presenting their student’s hard work. 😂
  
  
• 11am: Smart Home - TECHNOLOGY: Turn something unexpected in your home "smart". A tweeting fishtank? An illuminated toilet roll holder? You do you!
  
  Winner: @zoob.bsky.social cool concept and a lightning fast turnaround to implement it, nice!
  Runner Up: @bornach.bsky.social an automated corvid certainly meets the criteria for “something unexpected” - good job!
  
  
• 1pm: Mini Constructor - ENGINEERING: Create a tower of tiny things. Make the shortest possible free-standing tower using the biggest number of tiny items you can. Be creative!
  
  Winner: @topshed.bsky.social for an incredibly balanced binary encoded stack!
  Runner Up: @deveritt-uk.bsky.social for managing a 3D print within the time limit - phew!
  Special Mention: @simuk.bsky.social for really pushing their luck… 😂
  
  
• 3pm: Good Character - ART: Design your own font. Submission must include at least five drawn characters and a brief description.
  
  Winner: @kypsis.bsky.social a clear leader here - great concept and actually pretty usable! 👍
  Runner Up: @jtruk.bsky.social another nice concept that has potential…
  Special Mention: @fearoffairies.bsky.social for some seriously cheeky nonsense! 😂
  
  
• 5pm: Maths Mystery - MATHS: Calculate the number of LEGO pieces in this oversize Minifig head - leftovers from many kits so they skew on the small side!
  
  Winner: @rankku.bsky.social with a guess of 741! Just 12 away 🤯
  Runner Up: @shamay299.bsky.social guessed 784 which is still pretty creditable!

Saturday (30th Nov)

• 9am: Say Again? - SCIENCE: Explain your fave science discovery badly. Entries judged on being brief and amusingly wrong, yet still technically correct. The best kind of correct.
  
  Winner: @knaveen.bsky.social for a delightfully naive (and illustrated) introduction to genetics! 
  Runner Up: @tinkerermom.bsky.social for some quality, child friendly, education!
  Special Mention: @fortoffee.bsky.social for really stretching a theme beyond it’s limits…
  
  
• 11am: Uncreative Works - TECHNOLOGY: Using only ChatGPT or equivalent write an ode to Makers. The weirder the better. Absolutely no human creativity!
  
  Winner: @rsgelg.bsky.social with a succinct but inspiring entry - something about this one we really liked!
  Runner Up: @crutchley.bsky.social for their obsequious flattery
  Special Mention: @claireprice.bsky.social for the phrase "frog-buttering machine" 😂
  
  
• 1pm: Flinging Fruit - ENGINEERING: Use a piece of fruit to transport/propel a Minifig a moderate distance non-fatally. The more engineeringy and convoluted the better.
  
  Winner: @leowhite.bsky.social for putting that poor Minifig through a truly harrowing experience!
  Runner Up: @emmanorling.bsky.social for similar reasons… s/Minifig/cat/
  Special Mention: @crossbynameonly.bsky.social for least dangerous option.
  
  
• 3pm: Pixel Pirate - ART: Pirate Towers the GAME! Create a pixel art character of either a Pirate, a Ninja, a Robot, or a Monkey
  
  Winner: @kypsis.bsky.social skills shone - should have known after the font challenge…
  Runner Up: @cannonfodder.bsky.social derpy little robot!
  Special Mentions: @fearoffairies.bsky.social nice to see a young entrant! & @mattbrailsford.dev cute concept!
  
  
• 5pm: Notable Number - MATHS: We all love Pi, Googols, and Avogadro's number. Come up with a new "notable" number and explain yourself! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_numbers for inspiration.
  
  Winner: @timholyoake.uk for seasonal relevance 🎄 and the feels
  Runner Up: @elinoroberts.bsky.social for a nice millennials pun! 🥑
  Special Mention: @thehubbbard.bsky.social another social commentary piece - my aren’t we all on the pulse!

Sunday (1st Dec)

ALL DAY - ART: Design new marquee, screen, and console artwork for our Picade cabinet - submissions must be in by 7pm GMT!

To help you get started Paul has prepared a nice net of the inserts that we get printed to ship with Picade: download the Picade artwork outline file

You can use this to draw directly onto, print out and hand colour, or whatever works for you.

Prizes:

• Winner: @tinkerermom.bsky.social - colourful concept like the paint splats! 🎨💥 (Picade MAX)
• Runner Up: @crossbynameonly.bsky.social - different take on things and #piratesrule (Picade 10")
• Special Mention: @kypsis.bsky.social for something that doesn’t meet the spec but is very impressive! (£50 gift card)

Rules

Rules may not be glamorous, but they’re the compass that keeps the ship steady! ⚓ Here’s what you need to know:

• Challenges begin when we post them on Bluesky.
• You’ve got one hour from the start to submit your entry. ⏳
• All entries must include the hashtag #yarrbooty. 🏴‍☠️
• Entries should fit neatly into a single post—brevity is key!
• We’ll announce the winners after each challenge. 🏆
• Our word is law—the judge's decision is final (that’s us, in case you wondered).

Stick to the rules, and let the fun commence! 🦜