The Perfect Stunt Hack equals surprise, plus publicity, plus the ingenious use of technology, plus harmlessness, plus safety.
Pranks are not designed to hurt, but to leave your audience scratching their heads wondering...how did she do that?! Technology is just a tool that can bring people together or tear them apart.
How you use it is up to you...
For inspiration, check out the history of Stunt Hacks at MIT
Watch the Trailer
Press Kit
Episode 101 - Hello World
Episode Hacks/Tech:
Light-up swords
A notice board that disguises the front entrance of the clubhouse
A DIY knock lock
Watch Rebelle and Ava fight to the death with their light-up swords as they glide and joust across the room on rolling chairs, inspired by this XCKD comic. Ana and Rebelle hastily taped some glow sticks to their foam swords but if they had more time they might have made a light-up sword like this tutorial from Adafruit!
For your inside scoop: The Notice Board covering the girls' clubhouse door in the library is based on a real MIT Prank. Food for thought if you ever want to hide your own secret room!
OK, but can we talk about how cool that secret knock was? Ava must have used an Arduino kit to create the controlled DIY lock and OMG I need one for my room! #NoParentsAllowed!
Episode 102 - Shyness in BPM
Episode Hacks/Tech:
DJ Helmet
DJ Software
Lighting Design
Let's talk about that dance prank! Rebelle made Frances a light-up DJ Helmet to disguise her identity! IRL you can make all kinds of fashionable customized light-up projects! Like a badge that reacts to your heartbeat, Firewalker LED Sneakers or a skirt that sparkles!
DJ software! Frances is a DJ genius. If you love music as much as she does, check out the world's first codable music video from Doja Cat and Girl Who Code!
Lighting Design - The L.A.S.S. girls put together some impressive lighting tricks for that dance! Did you know there are people who design light for a living? Next time you go to a concert or watch a theatre production - watch the stage lighting shift from moment to moment telling you something different about the music or story with each change. There is a team of people whose job it is to hang, focus and program all of those lights to make magic! Check it out! To get started or if you just want to add some chill vibes to your room with Bluetooth controlled LEDs!
Episode 103 - The Prisoners Dilemma
Episode Hacks/Tech:
An amethyst GPS tracker
White Hat, Black Hat
The girls are sneaky this episode when they give Mrs. Hein a pendant that has a GPS tracker inside. Of course, being a moral person, Tina refuses to share location stats on someone without their knowledge. Even thought Tina's defiance makes Ava's brain short-circuit, they still let Tina into the Secret Society.
Some people )including Mrs. Hein_ believe that wifi radiation is harmful (Spoiler Alert: it isn't). Some people also believe that crystals have "powers" that shield you from electronic radiation (More Spoilers: they don't). Everyone is free to believe what they want to, but unfortunately science doesn't back them up on those ideas!
Did you think Tina was talking about coloured hats for no reason? Think again. In internet lore a “white hat” refers to an ethical computer hacker, or a computer security expert, who specializes in testing software to ensure the security of information systems. A “black hat” hackers are criminals who break into computer networks with malicious intent. They may also release malware that destroys files, holds computers hostage, or steal passwords, credit card numbers, and other personal information.
tl;dr use your hacking powers for good!
Episode 104 - ESC From Boredom
Episode Hacks/Tech:
Ava's video game
Ava's secret camera
Rebelle's D&D game
Rebelle leads her fiends through an epic (and infuriating!) RPG campaign. Check out girlsgutsglory for inspiration on setting up your own group with your friends! There are soooo many TTRPGs to choose from! Try the classic Dungeons & Dragons, or get started with a free version of Quest or explore a world where Magical Kitties Save The Day!
Since TTRPGs aren’t Ava’s thing she decides to create a video game called “Escape From Lady Boredom’s Dungeon” inspired by her oppressive circumstances. Want to make your own video game? Tutorials from code.org and Minecraft or Unity will have you blasting pixels in no time!
Ava uses a tiny secret camera to capture inspiration from her school for use in her video games. She turns the world around her into backgrounds and villains. What will you create?
Episode 105 - TROOOOOOOOOLL
Episode Hacks/Tech:
FART gun
Trolling Trolls
Le FART gun. We thought this was a work of pure fiction until we discovered that someone had actually made one. Hilarious and Genius. I will take 10.
Trolls invade Rebelle’s fashion blog but her friends are at the ready to support her. She’s smart enough to know that suffering in silence is never the answer. Always open up to someone you trust if you’re being bullied online or IRL. People who have nothing better to do than attempt a take down of your glorious self do not deserve your energy.
Buuuut, if you do feel the need to respond - hiding behind an IP Proxy and sending pictures of noodles and naked mole rats... total power move! Just be careful not to become the trolls you fight.
Episode 106 - Hiding in Plain Text
Episode Hacks/Tech:
A secret code
Floor speaker
RF sniffer device
Serving bacon for dinner? Isn’t that a breakfast food? Turns out, no bacon for dinner at all, it was just a secret code Ava used on Rebelle to let her know that she was being followed. Now I’m hungry.
Ava’s clever code word translation program is a great example of what you can do with Python. In this case, we made a very basic program that reads user input “Serving bacon for dinner” and compares against a dictionary of phrases. If it has a match it returns the coded message... “I’m being followed”. Try it out!
The girls have hot wired the PA system to an old speaker in their clubhouse to make sure they don’t miss any important announcements. It’s old-school, but it works!
Hein takes matters into her own hands when she decides to search the school for the girls. Her RF “sniffer” is a device that detects radio frequencies, like the ones emitting from your wifi router, or your cell phone. As Hein closes in, Tina comes up with a plan to save the club house - shut everything down, except one cell phone that Tina will use to lead Hein away from the club house. By switching her phone in and out of airplane mode Tina leaves a trail of breadcrumbs for Hein to follow... but can she stay ahead?
Episode 107 - Halt And Catch Fire
Episode Hacks/Tech:
Synth pad
Flight Simulator
Most people use synth pads for music but Ava has decided to use it to hide her identity by programming it with her friend’s voice saying generic responses and feeding it into her mic input. Unfortunately, there are still a lot of places on the internet where “girls don’t belong”. Ava still wants to play video games online, but she’s too tired to fight the trolls today. She’ll smash the patriarchy another time.
Frances reveals that Ava was coding a flight simulator for Tina, which is why she was squatting in the closet. IRL there are a zillion open source Python projects you can jump into and change for your own exciting (or nefarious) purposes. Check out this list from freeCodeCamp for ideas, or try adding a level to the aforementioned Flight Simulator if you’re feeling really really ambitious!
Episode 108 - F.A.R.T.
Episode Hacks/Tech:
Text to speech python program
“Evacuate the School! Technology is AMAZING!”. Yes everyone, listen to Mrs. Hein...or at least...what the girls had her say in their text to speech python program where they’re able to make their headmistress say anything. With practice, you can too...but maybe make sure the voice you are featuring is open to being featured ;)
Episode 109 - The Best of Both Worlds
Episode Hacks/Tech:
Cat bell security system with QR codes
Sewable LED lights
The Final Prank!
Wait! The girls have their own QR codes? You can too! Psssst, if you scan the girls’ you’ll get a fun surprise!
Their cat bell security system is...chefs kiss!
Each of the girls give a presentation on something she’s passionate about. Frances talks about how narrative science fiction inspires real-world technology. Rebelle talks about creating a simple circuit which is the first building block to rocking a light-up dress!
Tina talks about the basics of space flight (because she sleeps eats and breathes her goal to become an astronaut). And Ava talks about her favourite video game design software. (Because it should be partially educational right?)
The final prank! Where did they get enough chicken gas to fill all those balloons? We don’t want to know... balloon popping courtesy of servos and pointy pins. A perfect way to evacuate the school and cause chaos topped off with some clever banners, smoke, glitter and voila! A hilarious but harmless prank.