GeauxHack

As much as I bleed maroon, I couldn't help but show a little of my Louisiana pride last weekend at GeauxHack. I almost didn't attend due to the stress of school starting, but I decided last minute to make the 6-hour car ride down to Baton Rouge. Although it was the first of hopefully many future LSU hackathons, it was a great event full of creative minds, great mentors, and very little sleep.

One of the coolest things about this hackathon was the access to a hardware lab, provided by Major League Hacking. This hardware lab was chock full of the latest hardware devices, like Leap Motions and Arduinos (Myo armbands will be coming soon!). Devan Huapaya, Karrie Cheng, and I all thought it would be a really great experience to work with Leap Motions. Thus, the idea of Sign2Line was born! We set out to make a sign language translator compatible with the new and improved Beta2 version of the Leap Motion's software.

Karrie and I programmed the Leap Motion using JavaScript, which was great because I had never used the language practically or outside of a lesson format. Devan built the front end of the site and got it to communicate with the device. I loved our team! We ate food the whole time to stay awake. As midnight passed we also made sure to wish Devan a happy birthday. What a dedicated hacker! I loved watching other teams that also chose to hack the Leap Motion, too. We made friends with one team from LSU that chose to make a virtual theremin using the leap motion. You can check out their hack here.

As presentations rolled around we were happy to have finished a working prototype. All the hacks were extremely creative and fun to watch. In the end, the group vote came out in our favor! We were elated that our 24 hours of hard work had shown. Major League Hacking awarded each of us a Leap Motion, and GeauxHacks gave us Dell Tablets.

Was it worth Geauxing to GeauxHack?
..Do you even have to ask?

Oh, and happy birthday Devan!

Immersing yourself in the Hackathon Culture

I was a college student fresh out of my first year, with a 4.0 GPA, majoring in Business, and having no idea what to do with my life. Nothing got me super pumped or excited about any job that I could possibly have. When companies came to talk about their opportunities, and what types of roles you would have within the company, I never visualized myself doing any of them. They all seemed boring, tedious, routine, and really just not for me.

The following year, I had made the switch to Texas A&M and had been toying with the idea of switching into Computer Science, but I knew very few people that were engaged in the culture that could enlighten me on all of that. I knew I liked innovation, and being at the forefront of learning about the newest and best technologies, but I had never seen how easy it was to get started programming on your own.

Coding Gig 2013

In the beginning, it was just Jose, Nick, and me. Nick had sent us an email about a big data hackathon that was being thrown by Dr. Caverlee, one of the professors at A&M. At this point, I had really only heard about the hackathon concept from my sister who went to the University of Pennsylvania, and to be honest, I kind of visualized it somewhat like in the scene from “The Social Network” where Mark Zuckerburg is hosting a coding challenge where everyone is taking shots and people are cheering them on in the back. It was about a 20 hour hackathon, and I figured I had nothing to lose since it was free and we would get fed. So I partnered up with Jose, and another friend named Jeremy, and we decided to hack it out.

Everything that could have gone wrong, went horribly wrong. We were given multiple files with 81 million tweets in them formatted with JSON, and we were instructed to display something cool with them using visualization tools such as D3JS. We struggled opening the files, parsing so much information, and then displaying the little we had parsed with D3Js. The project was not finished, but it was the beginning of a year that changed my life.

Microsoft Hackathon

Despite the epic failure that was my first hackathon, I for whatever reason, really liked the experience. I felt challenged and enjoyed the fact that everyone around me had similar interests and drive. That’s why without hesitation, I also attended the hackathon Microsoft hosted at our campus. Again I partnered up with Jose, and again we ran into problems from the beginning. Since the challenge was to make a Windows app, we needed to both have the same versions of Visual Studio running on Windows 8. We spent the next 7 hours of our time installing, un-installing, re-downloading, and re-installing different versions of Windows 8 and Visual Studio because they weren’t backwards compatible, didn’t work for different versions of Windows, and a plethora of other reasons.

When we finally got it, we ran into issues because we needed a back-end to save some data we required for our app. I know that now, but back then, we were like “Whats the command for saving information locally?!?!?!” We had a nice user interface, so we just ran with that. Of course we didn’t win anything, but I got a different win nonetheless. I had talked to Anthony, the recruiter hosting the event, a few times before where he had given me resume tips. I came up after the event and thanked him for hosting it, along with giving him my resume at which point he mentioned, “Oh, I see you have added some of the things we had talked about”. A week later, I got an interview with Microsoft, and a free trip to Seattle. I still talk to Anthony on a regular basis.

Hack TX

About a month later, Jose and I attended HackTX at the University of Texas at Austin. HackTX was MUCH bigger than any of the other previous two we had been to. We realized that we needed a team with more exprienced people, so we partnered up with Gourav, one of the people that we met at the Microsoft Hackathon. He brought along, Harshad, and Prashant to work on the back-end. This was attempt number three, and again, we did not get a working project. For whatever reason, we were not able to connect the front-end and the back-end, to get a working site, but since we used Windows Azure, and the developer evangelist, Ryan Joy, really liked our idea, we won Microsoft developer phones.

Two of the many things I got out of Hack TX were 1. that A&M did not have a hackathon presence anywhere we went as my team was the only one from A&M, and 2. that hackathons were like a career fair in the sense that you network with companies the same way that you would at an actual career fair. I still keep in touch with some of the companies I met there.

PennApps and HackRice

PennApps and HackRice were the hackathons where I started meeting the most amounts of people, and realized that was my favorite part of going to the hackathons. I met, and still talk to, people from Rice and UPenn obviously, but also USC, Baylor, UT, Binghamton, University of Houston, and a few other schools across the country. At the time, I had also started picking up Android Development, and with how busy school was, hackathons were the only times where I was able to attempt meaningful projects, each time getting closer to finally finishing. Both experiences were wonderful.

Facebook and LAHacks

Now officially having switched to computer science, and taking the classes. I met Bob and Eleni. Bob has his own company where he develops games, and Eleni is a Biology major minoring in comp sci. I convinced them to go to the Facebook Hackathon where we were now able to take 7 other A&M’ers. We were ecstatic. Because this was Bob and Eleni’s first hackathon, I decided to join their team since I thought I could bring much needed experience. Bob and Eleni killed it. We were done with our project after 12 hours, and just fine tuned some details right before the presentation. We won, and along with the dub, we got Nexus 7 tablets, interview offers, and a free trip the Menlo Park to compete in their Global Hackathon in November.

That win resulted in our school paper, and computer science department wanting to write articles on us. Because we got the exposure, the computer science department was willing to fund our next trip to go to LAHacks! For our trip to LA, we added Walt and worked on Judo, the world’s smallest E-reader. We received such great feedback from everyone who saw it that we decided to launch a Kickstarter campaign this summer. Along with that, we met Michael and Don, two Yelp engineers. Both of them were great examples of the type of culture at work at the hackathons, and they got pretty involved with our project.

What did I get from all of this?

So if you've gotten this far, and haven’t been keeping track, let me recap for you.

I had ZERO idea how to program, and knew three ish people in my school that had any sort of computer science experience. I was not a computer science major, and had no connection to anyone in the field. Because of my Hackathon adventure this year, I am in computer science, expanded my network to all across the United States, and even a friend in India, and have relationships with companies and startups that are leading to interviews and trips in the fall that I would not have previously had. Through the Facebook hackathon, I was pulled in to help organize that Hackerbowl at Texas A&M, and in this time we decided to start a A&M’s first hacker club to help get more Aggies going to these events.

I was not blessed with God given programming talent, and am still not overly experienced, but I was able to pull through all of this, and pass up people, in terms of career opportunity, that had been programming for years. Through reaching out to people I had met at these events I was able learn so much about how to better myself, and for all of this, I probably spent about thirty dollars, a few missed quizzes that seem to be paying off, and sacrificed 8 weekends of my semester. I’m still not 100 percent sure where I want to go with what I’m doing, but by doing it, I’m putting myself in the best position to pick whatever I want.

Architecture Hackathon

I have been in and out of different majors during my career at Texas A&M; my first hackathon convinced me Computer Engineering was the place for me. I had no idea what a hackathon was, and I was extremely insecure about my ability to succeed at one. As I walked into the room where all the other hackers were gathered, I began to ease up. I saw some friendly faces, and everyone seemed extremely relaxed and sociable. After the Dean of Architecture gave a short welcome, everyone dispersed to find their optimal coding environment.

From left to right: Karrie Cheng, Christopher Nolan, Raunak Srivastava, Raphael Sarmiento

My team and I are featured in the picture above.  I came with a team of 4, but we met another Aggie named Feng who we welcomed into our group. Unfortunately Feng had to leave us to go to his Professor's seminar in Austin. Karrie, Raunak, and Raphael are all in Computer Science classes with me and that's where we met. When we decided to team up for this hackathon, we had no idea what we were getting ourselves into. None of us knew each other that well before this hackathon, but somehow 24 hours of sleep deprived coding gave us a unique bond. I will never forget watching Frozen in the middle of the night while writing code with my fellow Aggies. 

Raphael Sarmiento hacking with a projector for enhanced visual display. 

I met so many awesome Aggies at this event. There were students from many different majors and tons of mentors as well. Everyone was in good spirits and willing to take a break from hacking for a good conversation. The college of Architecture was extremely generous with their sponsorship. Admission was free and we had a constant supply of sandwiches and cookies from Blue Baker, Papa Johns, Starbucks, Red bull, fruit, and lots of other snacks. I had never been in the College of Architecture before, the building was artistic and homey. Having this hackathon on Texas A&M's campus was great and I can't wait for the fall when there will be another hackathon hosted on campus. When Texas A&M engineers and computer scientists gather in one building, who knows what could happen? 

The idea behind this hackathon was to represent diversity in a unique way using visualization tools. My group and I weren't really sure what we were going to do but after 7 hours of brainstorming, we came up with some ideas. Eventually we decided to create a globe representing diversity around the world in ranked order. However we based the diversity of each country on how many citizens of that country could speak two languages. This globe started at Papua New Guinea (almost every citizen could speak two languages), and continued through out 100 other countries. We immediately found a trend. Most of the top 50 countries were in Africa, leading us to believe that diversity could possibly be based on other factors than race and gender! 

Here is an image of our Hack! Displayed is the 3rd "most diverse" country. 

This is our Hack after 10 rotations. Madagascar ranked number 10 

For the development of these web applications we used the D3 libraries and ran them off of a local server. We used a Prezi for our demonstration to the judges. When we presented, we were rushed because so many groups had a great end product ready to be demonstrated. We saw tons of great ideas and the judges seemed to love everyone's hack. After our presentation we relaxed and talked with other groups. Eventually we were brought back into the room and the prizes were announced. We won "Most Diverse Team" and "Overall Winner." This being my first hackathon, I was filled with surprise and excitement at our victory. Now we were leaving not only with a free t-shirt and new friends but also with $600 in Amazon gift cards and lunch with the Dean at the top of Rudder tower! 

Regardless if my team had won the grand prize or not, I would've had a great time at my first hackathon. To me, this hackathon was a great way to meet new people, learn new things, and just have a fun time. I would recommend it to anyone, including those who are insecure about their developing ability like me. I do have one warning though--after you go to your first hackathon you will be hooked. There's no coming back and soon you will find yourself flying around the country to attend these amazing events. 

Facebook Hackathon

The Facebook Hackathon in Austin, Texas was an awe-inspiring event that hooked me on hacking for a lifetime. I was a little nervous because it was my first time at a Hackathon, but my nerves were quickly calmed when I realized how much fun I was going to have, whether or not I was going to win something. I joined a team with two other Aggies, Bob Timm and Rafa Moreno. Even more Aggies decided to attend the event, including Coulton Vento, José Manríquez, Nicolas Botello, and Roel Orduno.

The event started Friday afternoon, and throughout the weekend contestants were welcome to an unlimited supply of snacks, energy drinks, and entertainment, including ping pong, cornhole, and a couple of Ripsticks. I myself took a liking to Ripstick-ing around the room when I needed a break. Did I mention how much food there was? Aside from snacks and drinks there were four meals served from the best local eateries. My team particularly enjoyed the Texas BBQ and late-night pizza. Prizes were given throughout the night at hourly raffles. Items to be given away included Facebook Snuggies, blankets, and hoodies.

My team and I decided to run with an idea called KidTag, which allowed someone to be tagged on Facebook before he or she was even allowed to have one. We thought KidTag could solve the problem of an empty timeline upon the creation of a Facebook account. After almost 24 hours, hacking unfortunately had to end Saturday mid-morning. Presentations followed shortly thereafter, and I was so proud of and inspired by my fellow Aggies. Coulton and his team created an app called Dormmates, which paired two incoming college freshman with matching personalities and sleep schedules. José, Nicolas, and Roel showed off an app called University-Notes, which calculated grades and kept track of test scores for college students.

Aggies almost swept the competition! Coulton and team won third place, earning themselves Sphero's. I was shocked when KidTag was called as the grand-prize winner. We walked up to the stage and were handed Nexus 7 tablets and told that we were going to Menlo Park in California to attend the international Facebook Hackathon competition in November of 2014. Bob, Rafa, and I could not stop smiling. We worked extremely hard and learned so, so much. I feel so lucky to have been part of this experience, and I encourage all newbie computer scientists to go out on a limb and try a Hackathon, like I did. You never know what will happen!

HackRice

           HackRice was a very interesting experience. At the time, it seem like Rafa and I were the only ones that were interested in hackathons to the point we would actually travel to another university to participate. It would be at HackRice where we would meet many new friends and make strong connections that would be important in the future.

 Coulton, a talented freshman also from Texas A&M, who would join us in future hackathon events. We also met Zo from University of Texas.

           HackRice offered a tech talk and tutorial session the night before the main event. I remember we got lost on our way there because we had no idea where to park. Despite this deterrent, we were still one of the first people to show up at the place. The people in charged of the room weren't even there yet.
           While we waited for things to start, we met representatives from Venmo, another student from MIT, and Zo from University of Texas who both joined our team the next day. It's funny how small talk can lead to future connections. I can't emphasize enough how important it is to be friendly and open to conversation. One can learn many things just from talking with other people. The night went on with long presentations about how to use different APIs from the small groups of companies that were there which included Google, Venmo, and Twilio. There was even a girl from Google who was present when the Internship movie was shot. After the event, we went home to get ready for the next day thinking about what to create at the event.

 The next day, we headed towards Rice University. The location of hackthon was at a different place but signs, GPS, and the experience of being around the area the night before made us get there with problems.


We had our team set and our idea ready to go.

The last 2 hours were crazy.











This is our final product: The Ante App. Despite the fact that we didn't win anything, it was definitely a learning experience. We met so many people and got to experience first hand the lows and ups of having a diverse team.