Break.Make.Create was launched to improve the skills set of the marketing industry by giving all creative, technical-minded and innovative thinkers the chance to tinker, craft and play. The initiative was organised by Hellocomputer with ‘music’ as its theme and R10 000 going to the winners.

From musical chairs with a twist to musical shoes, all 13 teams outdid themselves. The friendly, non-competitive studio environment saw participants assisting other teams who had big ideas but didn’t have the advanced technical knowledge needed to realise their hacks. Team work, enthusiasm and many cups of coffee later, the Break.Make.Create studios brought to life quality hacks that can potentially be adapted and applied to future client briefs.

Judges Rob Ford, founder and principal of The FWA Network; Ryan McManus, executive creative director of Native; Juliet McGuire of eNCA Tech Report; and Brett Morris, CEO of FCB South Africa had a tough time evaluating the work but eventually named The Sound & The Fury as the winning team.

Comprising Kerry Friend, Nathan Gates, Duncan Bell, Simon Fabricius, Tom van den Bon and Michael Bernhardt, the team hacked musical instruments to act as the controls for a computer game that they designed. Essentially, in a world where music is a crime, one must fight the violence of the silence to save the music, and humanity. One’s weapons include devastating drums, a killer keyboard and a harrowing harmonica. The music that one makes while one plays is all recorded on an old-school cassette tape that one can take with one when the game is over. View the video of their hack here here.

Hellocomputer managing director, David Moffatt, spoke about the value of hackathons at a recent IMC Conference. He said: “Hacking is a crucial creative tool and vehicle in that they not only aim to improve the skill set of the marketing industry, but also give creative, technical minded and innovative thinkers the chance to combine simple technology and inspired ideas to create ground-breaking hacks.”

Team Rocket in Cape Town won second place and R5000 for their LEGO inspired DJ set. The team included Ryno van Niekerk, Brendon Cahill, Muano Mainganye and Samuel Wells.
Their Midi Lego hack emerged as the team recognised that making music was a lot like playing Lego with sound. The team realised this concept by building midi switches into Lego blocks that enabled them to layer loops by building Lego sculptures. See how their music hack works here.

Pump Up the Jam’s team, comprising of Simon Spreckley, Mark Tomlinson, Jeremy de Tolly, Thomas Glendinning, RW Liebenberg and Ian Summs, took third place with their musical hack. There’s only one thing missing from the Reebok Pump range of sneakers, and that’s a pair of Pump Up the Jams. This concept gives the user the ability to create his or her own beats using a pair of hacked sneakers and a custom mobile music app. By simply dancing, the sneakers select from various music samples along with the sound playing from speakers in the sneaker tongue. They can continue to build on the samples by doing a series of dance moves and sneaker taps, until they’ve created their very own jam. And don’t forget the MJ glove accessory that triggers sampled classics like Pump up the Jam by Technotronics, just to make the experience even more, well, jamming. Check out their pumped up, pimping sneakers here.

For more information on Break.Make.Create, visit www.breakmakecreate.com. Alternatively, visit and like the Facebook page, here, follow @BreakMakeCreate on Twitter or find them on Instagram, here.