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.