Hundreds of Penn State students, along with visitors from colleges along the east coast, gathered in the IST Building on the University Park campus for Penn State’s annual Hack-a-thon. Small groups gathered around tables, each individual focused on their laptop as ideas started to form.
HackPSU, is a learning Hack-a-thon, where students with different levels of computer coding experience work together on projects. This was the first hack-a-thon for a number of students. Many had no clear goal in mind at the beginning of the weekend.
After 24 hours of little sleep and lots of coffee, ideas started to come together. By the showcase on Sunday afternoon, teams had built everything from an interactive spelling and math video game to a project called “Tweet Your Coffee,” that allows users to brew a cup of coffee by sending out a simple tweet.
Not all of the innovators set out to fix the world’s problems. Daniel Cadden and Ryan Yurkanin, two students from Temple University, came up with the idea to build a Chrome extension known as Mouthsounds. Cadden says pranksters can download it on friends’ computers to surprise them with foul sounds.
“Originally it was music, but we decided why not take it absolutely further and make very detailed sloshy, heavy breathy eating sounds and I don’t think there’s anyone that likes that and it’s very disgusting," Cadden said. "What’s great is the ease of use because its one site, two buttons and three seconds its on their computer across all Google accounts until they delete the extension which is very, very well hidden.”
Though the hackers were competing for prizes, there was plenty of room for collaboration. Mihir Garimella and Stephen Polcyn were two of only a handful of high schoolers competing in the event. They came from Fox Chapel High School in Pittsburgh. The sophomore and junior collaborated to build the “Presto Findo,” a drone device that locates missing electronic devices through Bluetooth technology.
When the duo hit a snag early Sunday morning, another hacker came to their rescue.
“Everybody here was super supportive, so for example one of our batteries shorted out halfway through," Garimella said. "So like 12:30 at night someone here took me to his dorm to get new batteries.
In the end, Garimella and Polcyn held their own in the college dominated field and were awarded the top prize for Presto Findo.
All the contestants left a lasting impression with the sponsors behind the event. Brian Oberholtzer said he was looking for potential job candidates during the weekend. Oberholtzer is the vice president of engineering at Zonoff, a software platform that works with home automation.
“We can identify people who have interest in our product area," Oberholtzer said. "We can see their minds and how they’re working. Are they fun to work with? We’d like to have those people work with us everyday.”
Zonoff awarded a group called AndreWeKnow that also used Bluetooth technology and allows users to give verbal commands that unlock doors and turn on lights in the home.
Along with Garimella and Polcyn, a dozen other groups were honored for their projects in different categories.