Netflix concluded their most recent Hack Day last month, with nostalgia filled innovations including a Netflix vending machine, which could be used to top up Netflix accounts with cash in public places and a project called Teleflix wired a Raspberry Pi to a vintage AT&T telegraph key, translating an input of Morse code into USB keyboard scan codes – aimed to make a remote control with a single button that could be used to search a Netflix catalogue.

Netflix hosts their biannual Hack Day in their headquarters in Los Gatos, California. Hack Days are a way for Netflix employees to take a day off from regular work to put together the most innovative and unnecessary inventions they can imagine. This year’s whimsical invention includes Spookyflix, which adds eye movement to the images on Netflix by tracking your remote’s position.

Self-selected teams compete against each other to build all kinds of apps and hacks, ranging from the downright crazy to the mundane and practical. With only two rules – the result has to be in some way related to Netflix, and it has to be built within 24 hours – Hack Day is meant for the company’s product and engineering teams to “take a break, have fun, experiment with new technologies, and collaborate with new people.”

The annual hack day is part of Netflix’s ongoing effort to drive creativity and innovation at the company. In the past, they’ve made a version of House of Cards play on the original NES, turned Netflix into an old-school video rental store with the HTC Vive, and re-imagined Narcos as a video game called Plata o Plomo.

While some of these ideas won’t make the cut as part of Netflix features, Netflix says the hack day helps push the boundaries of creativity and let the teams explore ideas, possibilities and future innovations for Netflix. Some ideas do make it to practical usage, for example, Netflix’s internal conference room scheduling system was conceived during a hack day project.