Last weekend the Johns Hopkins University hosted its first Hackathon, a 36 hour long competition where teams of 1-4 students were asked to create a smartphone app and present it. The winning prize of $1024, or the equivalent of the number bytes in a kilobyte (2^10), went to a sophomore team of Brian Ho, Ben Lu, Willis Wang, and Miles Zhan. Their app, called "DropMe," is a play on a picture and message sharing application like "Bump." This new app is location-aware, meaning that it can be dropped into a different on-screen location based on the GPS reading of the mobile phone.
The competition began with opening ceremonies on Friday night, but the real work started at 9 pm and lasted until 9 am on Sunday morning. The contestants were supplied with Red Bull energy drinks, ice cream, pizza, Mountain Dew, coffee, bagels, and anything else they needed to keep themselves awake. As if that wasn't hard enough, the teams that completed a project were then expected to present them to a panel of expert judges. This panel was made of three Hopkins CS professors, Devon O'Dell from content delivery network Fastly, and John Bienko of the U.S. Small Business Administration.
The sponsors of the program ranged from internet giant Facebook, for which student organizer Nate Schloss worked as an intern last summer, to alumnus Michael Bloomberg's company, Bloomberg L.P., to GitHub, EPIC, and the Social Innovation Lab right here at Hopkins. Facebook had a separate prize that went to a graduate student team which created an app that would allow event organizers to sell tickets to the event over Facebook. This Facebook Concerts app, created by Rahil Arora, Ankit Sharma, Nishikant Deshmukh, and Saramjeet Prasad, also took 3rd place overall. 2nd place was secured by team of Farhan Damani, Blaine Muri, and Jason Albalah for "SuperScale," an app that turns an iPhone into a scale.
Daniel Swann, an employee right here at Student Technology Services, was one of the students who worked tirelessly over the summer to organize and execute this event. He, along with Ben Glickman, Nathan Schloss, and Tyler Cloutier, believe the event went so well, they'll be repeating it again next semester.
"The winning hacks were extremely creative and well polished, and I felt that the winners definitely deserved their prizes. It was amazing to see so many innovative ideas developed over this short 36-hour period. I could even see some of the projects possibly being spun off into startups or independent studies," said Swann.
Some of these focused on the homeless population in cities across the country by allowing smartphone users to look up shelters and soup kitchens based on their current locations. Another allowed a user to get a reading on how safe an area of Baltimore is based on location and time of day. Given the increase in crime in Baltimore this summer, it's not a bad idea. A third, more academic app allowed a user to take pictures of old maps and automatically tie them together into a large mosaic. Matthew Petroff worked as an individual and produced a 1915 map of Hopkins' Homewood campus for his presentation, according to the Baltimore Sun.
This is an amazing example on the Hopkins campus of the initiative and collaboration that is a key feature of the Hopkins atmosphere. Hopkins is known for challenging its students, and there is nothing more challenging than producing excellent work in a short span of time with hardly any rest. Then again, that's the reality for many students on a day to day basis.
Over 130 students on 50 teams participated in the success of this event, and only 25 teams were able to present a finished product after 36 hours. That's an amazing accomplishment against incredible odds, and each student who was in some way connected to HopHacks should be very proud of themselves.
Special thanks to the Johns Hopkins HUB, The Baltimore Sun article written by Luke Broadwater, and Nate Schloss for their quotes and information. Best of luck for the next event, and thanks for reading!
The competition began with opening ceremonies on Friday night, but the real work started at 9 pm and lasted until 9 am on Sunday morning. The contestants were supplied with Red Bull energy drinks, ice cream, pizza, Mountain Dew, coffee, bagels, and anything else they needed to keep themselves awake. As if that wasn't hard enough, the teams that completed a project were then expected to present them to a panel of expert judges. This panel was made of three Hopkins CS professors, Devon O'Dell from content delivery network Fastly, and John Bienko of the U.S. Small Business Administration.
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| Alex Monroe, a junior at Hopkins, worked on a app called "Riffmaster," which used sound frequency signals from a guitar to control computer programs. In essence, they made the instrument a keyboard! From http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/education/blog/bs-md-jhu-hackathon-20130922,0,1736133.story |
The sponsors of the program ranged from internet giant Facebook, for which student organizer Nate Schloss worked as an intern last summer, to alumnus Michael Bloomberg's company, Bloomberg L.P., to GitHub, EPIC, and the Social Innovation Lab right here at Hopkins. Facebook had a separate prize that went to a graduate student team which created an app that would allow event organizers to sell tickets to the event over Facebook. This Facebook Concerts app, created by Rahil Arora, Ankit Sharma, Nishikant Deshmukh, and Saramjeet Prasad, also took 3rd place overall. 2nd place was secured by team of Farhan Damani, Blaine Muri, and Jason Albalah for "SuperScale," an app that turns an iPhone into a scale.
Daniel Swann, an employee right here at Student Technology Services, was one of the students who worked tirelessly over the summer to organize and execute this event. He, along with Ben Glickman, Nathan Schloss, and Tyler Cloutier, believe the event went so well, they'll be repeating it again next semester.
"The winning hacks were extremely creative and well polished, and I felt that the winners definitely deserved their prizes. It was amazing to see so many innovative ideas developed over this short 36-hour period. I could even see some of the projects possibly being spun off into startups or independent studies," said Swann.
Some of these focused on the homeless population in cities across the country by allowing smartphone users to look up shelters and soup kitchens based on their current locations. Another allowed a user to get a reading on how safe an area of Baltimore is based on location and time of day. Given the increase in crime in Baltimore this summer, it's not a bad idea. A third, more academic app allowed a user to take pictures of old maps and automatically tie them together into a large mosaic. Matthew Petroff worked as an individual and produced a 1915 map of Hopkins' Homewood campus for his presentation, according to the Baltimore Sun.
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| Nate Schloss, one of the student coordinators for the Hackathon, worked at Facebook as an intern last summer. Facebook was one of the major sponsors of the event. Congratulations, Nate! |
Over 130 students on 50 teams participated in the success of this event, and only 25 teams were able to present a finished product after 36 hours. That's an amazing accomplishment against incredible odds, and each student who was in some way connected to HopHacks should be very proud of themselves.
Special thanks to the Johns Hopkins HUB, The Baltimore Sun article written by Luke Broadwater, and Nate Schloss for their quotes and information. Best of luck for the next event, and thanks for reading!
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