Generate an icon for every big city in North America
A developer generated 544 icons, one for every North American city over 100,000 people, with Nano Banana Pro, and gave the pack away free.
Source
civilchaos on Hacker News · 2026-10-21 · Project link
Written in our own words. Credit to the original author. Link checked 2026-10-24.
What they did
A developer generated 544 icons, one for every North American city over 100,000 people, with Nano Banana Pro, and gave the pack away free.
Result (as claimed)
The full set cost about $70 to generate.
Tools they used
Cost: Pricing depends on the tools you pick; check each official pricing page.
Set it up
Collect your inputs
List what goes in (raw footage, script, topic list or audio) and the exact output you want, for example 5 vertical clips under 45 seconds. Put inputs in one folder.
Set up the tools
Open Nano Banana Pro. Connect accounts only where needed and note any per-minute or per-credit limits on the free plan before you start.
Run one piece end to end
Make a single output first. Check pacing, captions, voice and framing by watching it on a phone.
Turn it into a repeatable recipe
Save the prompts and settings that worked as a template so the next run takes minutes, then batch.
Review before you post
Watch every output before publishing. Check rights for music, likeness and footage, and label AI content where the platform requires it.
Copy the full setup prompt
Paste into your agent and it will walk you through the setup, asking before anything that sends, posts or spends.
You are helping me set up this AI use case end to end in Claude Code. Goal: Generate an icon for every big city in North America What the original author did: A developer generated 544 icons, one for every North American city over 100,000 people, with Nano Banana Pro, and gave the pack away free. Reported result (as claimed by the author): The full set cost about $70 to generate. Source: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50174813 Tools they used: Nano Banana Pro Category: Creators & video Please: 1. Ask me 3 short questions about my situation (accounts I have, budget, what I want the output to look like). 2. Propose a step-by-step plan using these tools or cheaper alternatives, with the time and cost of each step. Use official pricing pages; say "check pricing" if unsure. 3. Then do the setup with me one step at a time, waiting for my OK before anything that sends messages, posts publicly, spends money or deletes data. 4. Finish with a checklist to run it again next time.
You are helping me set up this AI use case end to end in Codex. Goal: Generate an icon for every big city in North America What the original author did: A developer generated 544 icons, one for every North American city over 100,000 people, with Nano Banana Pro, and gave the pack away free. Reported result (as claimed by the author): The full set cost about $70 to generate. Source: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50174813 Tools they used: Nano Banana Pro Category: Creators & video Please: 1. Ask me 3 short questions about my situation (accounts I have, budget, what I want the output to look like). 2. Propose a step-by-step plan using these tools or cheaper alternatives, with the time and cost of each step. Use official pricing pages; say "check pricing" if unsure. 3. Then do the setup with me one step at a time, waiting for my OK before anything that sends messages, posts publicly, spends money or deletes data. 4. Finish with a checklist to run it again next time.
You are helping me set up this AI use case end to end in Grok Bot. Goal: Generate an icon for every big city in North America What the original author did: A developer generated 544 icons, one for every North American city over 100,000 people, with Nano Banana Pro, and gave the pack away free. Reported result (as claimed by the author): The full set cost about $70 to generate. Source: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50174813 Tools they used: Nano Banana Pro Category: Creators & video Please: 1. Ask me 3 short questions about my situation (accounts I have, budget, what I want the output to look like). 2. Propose a step-by-step plan using these tools or cheaper alternatives, with the time and cost of each step. Use official pricing pages; say "check pricing" if unsure. 3. Then do the setup with me one step at a time, waiting for my OK before anything that sends messages, posts publicly, spends money or deletes data. 4. Finish with a checklist to run it again next time.
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