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.