Join our April Fools Challenge for a chance at TEA-RRIFIC prizes!!!

#devchallenge #418challenge #jokes

Build software that is intentionally useless

Hello, and let’s get this out of the way right now: this is no joke!!

Tired of building world-changing, hyper-optimized production apps? Sick of reading about clean architecture, scalability, and practicality for a moment? Then we have the perfect challenge for you! It’s time to lean into the chaos of the internet: Welcome to the DEV April Fools Challenge. 🦄

Our Prompt: HTCPCP IYKYK

Your mandate for this challenge is to build something completely useless or silly. We want software that solves zero real-world problems. A CSS-only site that un-centers divs? Great. A volume slider that requires you to shake your phone to turn up the music? Awesome. Your only goal is to make us laugh, scratch our heads, or ask Why on earth did they build this? Make a fool of yourself and have fun with it!

Additional Prize Categories:

Best Google AI Usage: Tell us how you leveraged Google AI for this submission. Did you build with Antigravity, experiment in Google AI Studio, or use the Gemini CLI? Or is there a Google AI product embedded in your build such as the Gemini API or any Google Cloud product such as Cloud Run? Tell us all about your experience!
Best Ode to Larry Masinter: We’re talking teapots and intentional 418s.
Community Favorite: Awarded to one of the most popular submissions based on comments, reactions, overall quality, and final judge discretion.

Judging Criteria and Prizes

All submissions will be judged on the following:

Anti-Value Proposition: How delightfully useless, silly, or over-engineered is this project?
Creativity: Is the concept original or a hilariously bad take on a familiar problem?
Technical Execution: Ironically, building bad software sometimes takes good engineering. Is it functional in its dysfunction?
Writing Quality: Is the submission post clear, and does it tell a funny, compelling story about your project?

Prizes

We’ll select two winners for the overall prompt, and one winner for each additional prize category. Our five total winners will each receive:

A surprise teapot or coffee maker with appropriate fixings (approx. $50 USD value)
DEV++ Membership
Exclusive DEV Badge

All participants with a valid submission will receive a completion badge.

How To Participate

Publish a post on DEV using the submission template below. Your post should give us an overview of what you built and a demo of your project.

April Fools Challenge Submission Template

Please review our judging criteria, rules, guidelines, and FAQ page before submitting so you understand our participation guidelines and official contest rules such as eligibility requirements.