On November 9th, 100 hardcore hackers embarked on an endeavour of epic proportions: to design digital solutions to student problems in 24 hours.
Running from 7PM on Saturday to 7PM on Sunday, students broke up into groups of one to four people to code a unique project which would benefit their peers on campus. The lengthy competition was punctuated by goofy Minute to Win It games, swag drops (courtesy of Google), much-needed food breaks, and fresh pots of coffee.
After working all night, the teams set up to demo for our lovely judges: Chris Vandevelde, a 4A Systems Design student with a specialty in Android development and previous co-ops at Canopy Labs and Square; Lucas Wojciechowski, a 3B Software Engineering Student and front-end wizard with previous co-ops at Twitter and Inkling; Vinit Kudva, a Software Engineering graduate, recurring judge for Software Fourth-Year Design Projects, and current Enflick Software Developer; and Marcelo Cortes, a Software Engineer at Square, Co-founder of FreePoint Inc, and previous Senior Software Engineer at Google.
The judges visited every team and came together to choose their top 8 teams, who then publicly presented their product in more detail. After much deliberation, the top three teams and honourable mentions were announced and various prizes distributed (including Nerf guns and plush geese!).
The first-place team’s hack, Good Morning, is the brainchild of 1A software students Sameer Qadri, Geoffrey Yu, Hicham Abou-Jaoude, and Jami Boy Mohammad. Good Morning is a personalized, user-friendly day-at-a-glance service that integrates weather, events, and news into one customized experience with email notifications, accessibility from any web browser, and a native iOS app. The algorithms take into account weather statistics to calculate daily weather, highlight major upcoming events in your calendars, and display daily news that interests you.
In second place was uWallet, an Android app created by 1A software engineering students Seikun Kambashi, Scott So, Jessica Wu and Andy Zhang. This app allows Waterloo students to conveniently access their WatCard balance and transaction history to help them keep track of their money.
In third place was Outbreak, an iOS and Android app created by 2A Mechatronics and ECE students Karym Kawambwa, Nv Bhargava, Sunaal Philip Mathew, and Prateek Madhikar to act as a supplement to the infamous Humans vs. Zombies on campus. The signup process is completely automated, notifying new players of their status as a human or zombie, and the interactive map allows players to view their teammates’ positions (Humans can see humans, zombies can see zombies), safe zones, and game challenges in real-time. Tagging is also incorporated with barcode scanning, converting humans into zombies with cool sounds and visual effects.
Other highlights include WatNotes, a site with access to class notes, previous midterm and final exams submitted by classmates from the University of Waterloo (www.watnotes.info); a working Facebook-triggered shock bracelet for the easily distracted; TedWalks, an app that gives you the shortest indoor path between any two buildings on campus to keep you warm and safe from geese (http://skoushan.com/tedwalks/
Stay tuned for another hackathon next term!
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