Cogs and Code. Bikes and Bytes. Geeks and Gears.

It's no secret that Quick Left is a bike-centric workplace (even our name is bike related). In celebration of National Bike Month and kicking off Boulder Startup Week, bike geeks and computer geeks (one and the same) will come together Tuesday, May 14 at our Bikes and Bytes Hackfest, where developers will be challenged to come up with bike-themed mobile or web applications in three hours or less.

The Boulder Civic Hackfest is being organized in conjunction with the National Day of Civic Hacking, an effort taking place in cities all across the country. We'll be bringing together citizens, software developers, and entrepreneurs to build open source software in a short weekend of fun and fulfillment.

Over 100 Boulder and Denver software developers kicked off our Rube Goldberg Hackfest, but only four teams survived to present their machines in the end. Who knew devs were so interested in YOLO tweets (which were a recurring theme for the evening)?

Most Quick Left Hackfests are WHAT you build in 3 hours or less. But this time we’re not worried about what you build...but how you get there. On March 27, this Rube Goldberg Hackfest will have you completing a simple task in the most complex of ways. We may also throw in some wrenches midstream to shake things up.

No need to form a team before-hand, they'll come together night of and will write in the language of their choice. Software developers, UX designers, and spectators are welcome. Prizes awarded for the top teams and the beer is on us. So come play for a bit. Doors open at 6 and the hacking kicks off at 6:30 sharp.

ATOMS Express, Gnip, Mobiplug, and KST have all agreed to sponsor this Hackfest and give us toys to play with. Visit their sites and thank them for the food and drink when you arrive. Prizes will be awarded as well from each company.

We saw 60+ geeks last night (though 110 preregistered--I will hunt you no-shows down) at the Quick Left and Precog Hackfest. Collaborative web and mobile apps, ranging from the brilliant and complete to the hysterical and...well...not so complete, were created in 3 hours with many using Precog's ReportGrid API. Surprisingly, most of the teams didn't know each other until pairing up at the Hackfest. Amazing what strangers can create with a little beer, pizza and dubstep to fuel the brain.

Again, thank you Precog for the ales, food, guest judges (+1 to Franco, Nathan and Matt), and prizes for the teams.

Video coming soon, but in the interim check out photos from the Hackfest and our upcoming events.

Bring your Razers because it's scraping time! The challenge for this month's hackfest is to scrape data from one or more sources using a language of your choice to create a unique and creative data mashup. Additional points will be awarded if you pull additional data from third-party APIs like Facebook, Twitter, Full Contact, Last.fm, or even Reddit. Bring your Band-Aids or maybe just your beer mugs. Either way, a good time shall be had by all.

Register: On our Eventbrite page
When: Wednesday, October 24th, from 6 - 9 pm
Where: QL HQ
Who: Anyone and everyone

We’ve been dying to throw a Hardware Hackfest for a while now, and last Wednesday the stars finally aligned (see also: The crew over at SparkFun are full of win and agreed to donate 30 SIK’s for the event). Twilio came on board with a sponsorship and we had ourselves an event!

Hold onto your keyboards ladies and gents, Christmas has come early. On Wednesday, September 19th, we’re throwing the Hackfest you’ve been dreaming of since you built that Millennium Falcon LEGO pièce de résistance when you were 12.

That's right, it's an Arduino Hackfest.

Last Wednesday night we got all kinds of wild with emails. Attendees had 3 hours to use SendGrid’s API in the most creative way. And the winners were....

Missed out on this Hackfest? Don't fret - on September 19th we're hosting an Arduino Hackfest with SparkFun. Register here.

Thought emails couldn't be scintillating? THINK AGAIN.
This month, Quick Left and SendGrid are teaming up to bring you another awesome hackfest. We'll be hacking on SendGrid's API to compete for Apple gift cards (err... prizes). Register here.

When: August 29th, 6 - 9 pm
Where: Quick Left Headquarters @ 902 Pearl St.
What: 3 hours of intensive hacking to make the best use of SendGrid's API
Who: Any and all developers interested in hacking on SendGrid's API. And anyone else who likes to eat pizza and drink beer at the Quick Left office. Register here.