Dynamo Challenge: Good Old-Fashioned Holiday Modeling Contest with Dynamo!

[john_pierson]

Hey Dynamites!

It’s that most wonderful time of the year again… which means it’s time for a

Good Old Fashioned Holiday Modeling Contest with Dynamo!

We’re closing out 2025 the only way that feels right: by making a glorious mess of festive, over-engineered, slightly unhinged Dynamo creations while the rest of the world is stuck in airport security lines and family group chats.

Dynamo Challenge: “Something that Says Happy [insert end-of-year occasion here]”

Build whatever screams “HAPPY 2026” / “SO LONG 2025” in the most awesome way possible.

• Custom tree topper that would make Clark Griswold jealous?

• A decoration/ornament inspired from the creative world of mathematical algorithms?

• A tiny kinetic sculpture of 2025 collapsing into glitter?

• Something that is animated in Dynamo?

• Something else mathematically inspired? (E.g. Fractals, Sine Waves or Golden Ratios?!)

All valid. All encouraged.

Don’t want to work within these constraints specifically? Even better. Make something that just radiates pure chaotic end-of-year energy. I believe in you. This is your annual excuse to finally break out Panel nodes, Curve Mapper, Autodesk Assistant (Alpha) in Dynamo or any number of agentic workflows.

Timeline

• Starts: Friday, December 5th, 2025 – 9:00 AM EST

• Ends: Friday, January 9th, 2026 – 5:00 PM EST

(Translation: you get all of December to procrastinate and the first week of January to panic-finish. You’re welcome.)

Entry Rules (same song, different year)

• Dynamo must be involved (even if it’s just there to look pretty)

• Attach your .dyn file (don’t make the mods cry)

• Custom packages/nodes? They better be on Package Manager (time to hit publish, legend)

• A maximum of 3 entries per person please

Blind submission only → DM your entry to @solamour, @achintya_bhat, @emrullah.yildiz, @john_pierson and @jacob.small

→ Message title: “Good Old Fashioned Holiday Modeling Contest with Dynamo”

→ Magic template link right here Submit Entry

Include everything needed to run it + at least one image that makes us go “wait… how??”

Prizes

1st Place = “Dynamo Challenge Winner” forum badge + this year. A featured blogpost about your workflow. (*see T&C Below)

2nd Place = “Dynamo Challenge Runner-up” forum badge

And bragging rights that last until next December (at least)

Let’s give 2025 the over-the-top, sparkly, slightly questionable send-off it deserves. Now go make something ridiculous and festive. I’m already emotionally invested.

Terms and Conditions for Contest Blogpost Feature

As a condition of receiving the “Dynamo Challenge Winner” blogpost feature, the winner agrees to submit a complete workflow description. This must include:

• Step-by-step instructions sufficient for a reader to recreate the submitted geometry using Dynamo, including any custom nodes or packages used.
• Clear documentation of all required inputs, settings, and dependencies.
• At least one image illustrating the final geometry and any intermediate steps that clarify the process.
• References to any external resources (such as graphs, datasets, or package links), which must be publicly accessible.
• Originality: The workflow must be original and not previously published elsewhere.

By submitting, the winner grants permission for the workflow and images to be published on the official contest blog, with attribution. The organizers reserve the right to request clarifications or additional details to ensure reproducibility and clarity. Failure to provide a complete workflow may result in forfeiture of the blogpost feature.

[Anton_Huizinga]

I was just sitting here doing nothing and thinking about what I could do, but now I know!

Waiting for all the beautiful creations that will be posted here soon!!!

[RevitRobot]

That awkward moment the skill level of the judges is 100x higher than almost anyone else on the forum, and yet we have to provide a “wait… how??”

[rajeshjamariya16]

Wish I could get those dynamo stickers and keychains for rewards. I’d pay to ship them to me. I really really want them haha

[Anton_Huizinga]

To kick off, just for fun (no sign-up), a quick and dirty graph:

Civil 3D 2026, with some nodes from The Civil Nodes package. Screencast is played at higher speed, it is actually a slow arrow

After all, it was more difficult as thought, I wanted the text fade in and out but for some reason texts are not drawn in a periodic run, so it is a fixed text now. Also I wanted to clean op the previous elements but can’t found out why it doesn’t work.

And I ended up all in one Code Block

[Anton_Huizinga]

Oh, I now see it must say ‘Happy 2025‘

[christian.stan]

Hi, here’s a test I’m doing (I’m calling it the Christmas Crazy Ball).
I tried to periodically display a number that can only be between 1 and 14.

I tried something that seems to work, but I’m not sure what I did.

def randomTriger (now)
{
return Math.Random();
};
Math.Ceiling(randomTriger(now)*14);

NOEL_2025.dyn (35.8 KB)

Regards, Christian Stan

[john_pierson]

@Anton_Huizinga

Oh, I now see it must say ‘Happy 2025‘

Either one works. didn’t even really think about that

[Alien]

Groundhog year?

[emrullah.yildiz]

With just looking at the animation, it looks like one of those fair area games that you smash the hammer and the object goes higher based on how hard you smashed it to the platform :))

[christian.stan]

Hi,
Not wrong ,
I still need to find a way to get an increasing number from 1 on each run in periodic mode; I’m stuck at the moment,

but I’m hopeful I’ll figure it out someday.

(I need to search the posts; there must be a solution somewhere.)

edit: thanks Moving Family Periodically - #2 by Marcel_Rijsmus
Regards,
Christian Stan

[Alien]

Have you worked it out now?

I LOVE moving Dynamo stuff

[christian.stan]

Hi,
Yes, currently, but it’s best to stick with a tempo of 1000ms.
I’ll have to figure out how to speed up the GIF (but that’s not exactly a Dynamo skill, I’m pretty bad at it, I realize that ).
Regards,
Christian Stan

[Alien]

I found severe limits to the speed - I think it’s Dynamo that runs slowly.

[christian.stan]

Copying an object to the clipboard, converting it to a number, incrementing it, and then retrieving it from the clipboard generates instructions (milliseconds+ milliseconds …, but still milliseconds). I wonder if the computer’s processing power affects the tempo (I’m not entirely sure).

Regards, Christian Stan

[john_pierson]

Oooh, I love animating stuff in Dynamo. My favorite package for this is firefly! (I have always had trouble doing the DateTime method)

[Alien]

I’ve never heard of the firefly package - what’s it do differently from date time?

[john_pierson]

It’s actually an older package for interacting with Arduino modules. But, it has utility fader nodes that let you specify time to iterate between values. So a very controllable timer essentially. It still works well in modern Dynamo too!