BitBuilt's 2026 Summer Building Competition

[CrashBash]

It's competition time. We're back to announce this year's summer contest including several new or changed rules and scoring areas. Make sure to, as always, review this thread in full! Since last year we've seen a variety of new projects ranging from the N64 motherboard being recreated in KiCAD to a certain $60 portable being recreated for slightly more than $60. Modders of all levels of experience are encouraged to enter the competition to demonstrate their skills while competing for rankings while having an excuse to do a project from start to finish.

Information

The 2026 Summer Building Competition officially begins June 1st and ends at the end of September. After concluding the community will vote and results will be revealed shortly after.

Your projects will be evaluated by your peers on how well they fulfill various voting categories. This year we're adding a new category, worklog updates and quality. Review the descriptions for each category below:

Innovation - Got an idea nobody's tried before? New stuff is always cool, and will gain you massive props

Case Design/Aesthetic - Pouring hours and hours into designing and producing a case deserves praise.

Internals - We've all seen portables that look as pretty inside as they do on the outside. Electing to make your internals clean will gain you some votes and cred among the community.

Features and Functionality - Despite the fact that some projects are mods of consoles over a decade old, it doesn't mean they shouldn't have modern amenities. Managing to sneak in extra features, more functionality (original or not), and whatever else you can come up with can gain you extra points.

Worklog updates and quality - What sets apart amateurs and professionals is documentation. How else can you tell someone to RTFDS? Writing down your progress, problems, etc as you work so others can follow along and learn benefits everyone.

Rules

Our goal each year is to make the contest as fair as possible for everyone participating and we hope that these rules achieve that goal. Take note of rule #6, new in 2026.

1. All work must be done by you and only you. Commissions involving your contest project are not allowed at any point throughout the duration of the contest while you remain a participant. This includes board trimming, PCB design, case design, wiring of any kind, etc. If you are unsure of what this includes, please ask before going ahead with it to prevent you from being disqualified.

2. A worklog with pictures must be made on the forums. A piece of paper or index card must also be visible in photographs with some variation of “BitBuilt 2026 Summer Building Competition” along with your forum username displayed on it.

3. At the end of the contest, a video of your project is required and must be submitted along with your final contest submission. If your project is not fully functional by the close of the competition, try to demo as much as you can. If it isn't functional at that time, you can include clips recorded through the competition showing the progress towards a finished project.

4. Your entry must not be an entry from previous years completed or otherwise. It must have been started in or after May of 2026.

5. When making your thread select the "Worklog" prefix. Once your entry is complete and also has your submission video, edit the original post to change the prefix to "Completed".

6. You should plan for your project to be completed in the competition timeline. To award those who be complete their projects, a 20% bonus will be included when tallying votes. When making your thread's first post you must define your goals for your submission. This includes what is essential for your project to be complete and also any optional extra/stretch goals. IE:

• Essential: Functional Nintendo 64 Portable with internal battery, controls, and flash cart
• Stretch Goals: Video out and custom wireless controller support

By registering for the contest, you’re letting us know that you agree to the rules stated above. Breaking the rules put you at risk of being disqualified from the contest and banned from BitBuilt events and or services. Any necessary punishment is decided by BitBuilt staff and is final. When in doubt about anything, reach out to myself, @cheese or a staff member on the forums / Discord and we will advise you or direct you to someone who can aid you.

Registration

In order to register, you must first log in, go to your account drop-down menu, and click “Account Upgrades”.

After that, you can click “Purchase” under the Available Upgrades section and pay the $3 entry fee. Once you have paid the fee, you will automatically be given a banner to denote that you are a contestant in the Competition!

Once you are ready make your worklog in the 2026 Summer Contest subforum. See rule 5 for thread prefix rules and rule 6 on details of what you should include in your initial post.

Make sure to pay attention to the stickies here on the forums as well as the Discord Channel. Any and all new information, such as the prizes, will be announced in those places respectively.

Good luck to all!


================

PCBWay is sponsoring the contest again this year and will be awarding coupons to our winners for use in future competitions!

Like last year, everyone is invited to share their projects in PCBWay's community. PCBWay will provide a 10% commission on any orders received through the community store. Additional details on this opportunity are provided here.

 

[turknatr]

Woohoo!

 

[MattDTO]

Good luck everyone! Can't wait to see the projects this year!

 

[Stitches]

This year I will finish my entry

Also I will paste here a few answers to common questions from last year's build comp to hopefully speed things up:

All work regarding your entry must have commenced no earlier than May 2026. This does not include the purchasing of parts or tools.
You are free to use whatever parts and equipment that you already have, provided that it is not pulled out of or recycled from a previous project.

Continuing an existing project or entry from before May 2026 is not permitted, but what you can do is make a sequel to an older project. We allow V2 type entries; the requirement is that the V2 must be a substantial evolution from its predecessor that doesn't re-use any "work" from the original project. It just can't be the original project in a new box with an incremented name. If the original was all spaghet hookup wire and hot glue, then making some basic custom PCBs and an all new case with screw posts fits the bill. If the case design is derivative of a previous project, it is permissible to do so only if the case model is recreated from scratch. Publicly available mesh data, like Wesks scan repository, can be used freely.

RoseDagger's GB Adwiince v3 is an example of this.

Oh and because the definition of "commission" in Rule 1 was a common point of confusion: It is entirely allowed to use and/or customise any open source project or publicly purchaseable "off the shelf" product from a business in your builds. You may also use fab-house services like PCBWAY to have your custom PCBs assembled, have your case 3D printed, decal stickers printed, vinyl sheets cut, CNC machining done etc, provided that what is being manufactured is your own work or an open source project. You may not pay for a service that replaces reasonable "work", such as buying a pre-trimmed console board, or paying for a board trimming service on etsy or the like.

Basically:

• Buying a product "off the shelf" from a public business store like 4layertech/electronshepherd/flashfi.re/ebay/amazon/aliexpress/.etc and using/modifying them yourself = Good
• Using/modifying an open source project like Thundervolt or Shinobi Scaler, or using open source 3D scans/modding resources as a part of your case design = Good
• Getting your comp entry case (that you designed) printed using a paid public 3D printing service = Good
• Consulting with others to ask questions or be taught how to do something that you need for your build = Good
• Asking others for a proofread/sanity check of your work (as long as all corrections and changes suggested are performed by you) = Good

• Having someone make something like a Thundervolt for you, paid or unpaid = Bad
• Having someone assemble something like a Thundervolt for you using components and boards that you purchased, paid or unpaid = Bad
• Having someone make modifications to any files or physical components related to your project on your behalf = Bad
• Having someone make something like a sticker or paint a design onto your case for you = Bad
• Having someone perform a service like trimming a board for you, performing physical troubleshooting with a board, or doing wiring/assembly for you = Bad
• Purchasing something that has had "work" done on it already, like a pre-trimmed board on Aliexpress or a custom firmware flash = Bad
• Re-using parts or custom design files from a previous contest entry = Bad

Finally, you don't have to include the contest name paper in every photo that you take for your worklog. Including the paper in one photo per update post is sufficient.

If you have questions, or anything seems unclear, please do ask so we can clear things up!

 

[ToxicBananaFish]

If I've already started a worklog documenting some testing for one of the key planned features of my project, even though I hadn't started on the actual build yet, back in April, does that project no longer qualify for the competition? I was hoping to enter my planned build (currently being called the Touch Mii), but I'm not 100% certain if what I've already done would be considered too early of a start to be entered in the competition. To be specific, I don't know if my code writing and baseline testing should be counted as "work" that was done before the scope of the competition.

 

[Stitches]

If I've already started a worklog documenting some testing for one of the key planned features of my project, even though I hadn't started on the actual build yet, back in April, does that project no longer qualify for the competition? I was hoping to enter my planned build (currently being called the Touch Mii), but I'm not 100% certain if what I've already done would be considered too early of a start to be entered in the competition. To be specific, I don't know if my code writing and baseline testing should be counted as "work" that was done before the scope of the competition.

We talked about this and have decided that recent research and basic testing done without doing any building does not constitute prior "work". There are a couple of such projects that we allowed this year, so you can enter your Touch Mii as well!

I have also updated my above FAQ post to mention the name paper requirement.

 

[ToxicBananaFish]

We talked about this and have decided that recent research and basic testing done without doing any building does not constitute prior "work". There are a couple of such projects that we allowed this year, so you can enter your Touch Mii as well!

I have also updated my above FAQ post to mention the name paper requirement.

That's really nice to hear, I'm super glad that I can enter my build in the competition! Just one more question (for now): Should I adjust my current worklog to label it as an entry, or do I need to create a new thread for it? Again, huge thanks for addressing my concerns! Hopefully I'll be able to finish the build before the competition ends

 

[Stitches]

That's really nice to hear, I'm super glad that I can enter my build in the competition! Just one more question (for now): Should I adjust my current worklog to label it as an entry, or do I need to create a new thread for it? Again, huge thanks for addressing my concerns! Hopefully I'll be able to finish the build before the competition ends

You'll need to make a new worklog in this section. We keep all comp worklogs in one place for tidyness and archival purposes.

 

[Diztance]

Hmmm ok I think I know the answer to this but im gonna thow a hail mary, I started designing a circuit board for my wii portable on april 20th... I suppose I cant really enter the competition with that build, right? It's the only tangible thing I've done on the build so far.