Hackathon

I’ve been meaning to create a mobile app for UberNote for some time.  But a combination of workload on the day job, other life priorities, and procrastination has kept me from it.  But recently I have began to revisit the idea.  And when AT&T’s Developer program sponsored an all-day hackathon, I figured it would be just the thing to get me in gear.

I’ve generally shied away from developer competitions.  They are crowded and noisy which are bad for focused work, they encourage developers compete versus hone skills, and really, what worthwhile project could be coded in a day.  And I guess you could say that all of these things were true.  And, as with all things involving code, the group was 95+% male.  But forget all of that, there is nowhere I would have rather been on that Saturday!

The morning started with all of the participants jammed into the main room of the ThinkSpace.  While enjoying free bagels, we listened to lightening talks from the sponsors.  These were actually very interesting.  It was a great opportunity to learn and receive free samples for a lot of relevant technology.  When the speeches concluded, we formed teams and spread out into the various rooms in the building.  This and a good pair of headphones eliminated the crowded/noisy concern.  Since I was working on a project of my own, I opted to work alone.

As with all things involving code, massive amounts of caffeine were at our disposal.  A few hours in, Red Bull girls stopped by to hand out 16oz. cans.  Combined with a sick playlist and the joy of writing code for myself and only myself, I really got my head into my code.  I think I reached a state of nirvana.

That said, I did make it a point to spend code breaks and lunch talking with other developers.  Despite the fact that it was a competition, everyone was very open to discuss ideas.  It ended up learning about a lot of interesting groups and projects people were working on.

As for how much could be coded up in a day, I was surprised.  Admittedly, I created a special branch of my code, did almost no error checking, and fudged a couple of UI elements.  But I was able to knock out about half of the features I intended to include in the final version of the application.  Plus I identified a few issues that need to be resolved in my implementation plan.  And some of the things the groups managed to pull off were substantial.  My personal favorite was a team that created a digital version of the ‘Love Contract’ from the Dave Chappelle Show (basically, it’s a contract a groupie must sign before getting intimate a celebrity) for tablets.  But the most impressive app was an augmented reality game of laser tag using the camera on Windows Phone 7 phones.  Two of the four teammates just graduated from high school.

Now if we could just get some more ladies to code …

Links
Thinkspace: http://thinkspace.com/

AT&T Developer Program: http://developer.att.com/developer/tier1page.jsp?passedItemId=100006&_requestid=54523