Kemerovo Hackathon, or "as the first sticker appeared on my laptop"
On the first weekend of April, from the 2nd to the 3rd of the month, in the framework of the IT-Salad festival in Kemerovo, the Taste-IT Hackathon was held. It was devoted to the development of mobile applications, games, microcontroller programming and the creation of Internet of Things projects. The organizers of the event were people from Microsoft Student Partners, KemSU and KuzGTU. The general partner was the company Siberian Networks.
The idea of creating a small program originated six months ago. I expressed the idea to my classmate, and he decided that it should be implemented as a mobile application. However, on this we completed the development of the project, because then for some reason it was very difficult to organize everything.
Three weeks before the start, while seminars / master classes were held at the REU and KemSU as part of the festival, I accidentally found out about the Hackathon and immediately started looking for a team, taking the almost forgotten idea as a basis. First of all, I invited a classmate with whom we began to design a design. They planned to leave writing the entire program part for the time of the Hackathon, having thought out only the concept. Soon a good designer entered the team, who also made a huge contribution to further work.
So DevCom appeared.
')
What did we know? What owned? In fact, at the time of launch, we had the experience of knowing C ++ and HTML languages, as well as a general idea of object-oriented programming. The complexity of the hackathon was that we were going to write in a little-known language, C #. On the other hand, I was free to change the XAML code, and my friend read specialized literature for all three weeks. In short, even then we understood how interesting the event would be.
Pretty simple idea. We wanted to make an application that offers users to choose clothes to their liking, depending on the current weather. Perhaps the idea is not new. But, judging by the research we conducted on the stores of the three mobile platforms, there was still no good counterpart. Against the background of our program looked much better.
So, after weighing many aspects, including market aspects, it was decided to write an application under Windows Phone.
UPD: After a year and a half, I brought the idea of the application to release, but already on the Android platform. You can download the program from the market Google Play and poke.
Our team came to the site of KemSU (where we spent this weekend) before the participants and organizers. For some time we were simply not allowed into the school, because no one took a passport with them. As it turned out, the guards did not know about the planned event.
Soon we saw familiar faces - these were people from MSP carrying posters and food in our direction. After a while we sat in the creative lounge, anticipating the start of the event.
Sponsors acted. The organizers gave last parting words. The teams presented their ideas. So began the hackathon.
Everyone came with their equipment. We hoped that as soon as we occupied the workplaces, we would start writing code and making some sketches. But in fact, almost all the teams had difficulties: for example, only one of the four operating notebooks was ready for the work process. On the Mac system. On the second, we managed to put the development environment "Visual Studio 2013" and connect to it "Windows Phone" instead of the emulator. The third one was used as a search engine - we were looking for information that could somehow help in the process of constructing C # code. However, at night we found the use of the fourth laptop. Considering that the concept was agreed and approved, we began to work. But even here disagreements arose. It seemed to me that I needed to add more pages for the convenience of the user (about 5), but our designer wanted to place everything on two or three pages. After some time, a compromise was established, and then we started writing the code.
By midnight, something was ready, and it began to seem to us that there was a lot of extra time left, so we decided to take a break. Taking out the fourth laptop, I set up an online broadcast of the event. While the designer was in the video chat, the guys from the team that developed the browser game also decided to take a break and had fun spinning somersaults in front of the cameras. The third person, the coder, tried to figure out C # and at the same time adjust the details of our application. He explained this by saying that the next morning we would hardly have been able to collect our thoughts and do everything as it was intended.
Towards dawn, my thoughts began to distort. I stopped following the behavior and speech, and thus found myself sleeping in chairs shifted to each other. Friends said that I fell asleep for 15 minutes, then I jumped up, suggested an idea about the code to them, and then went back to sleep.
All teams were hard. Perhaps this part of the event was the most severe. Not without help from the organizers.
Development time was coming to an end. We made the latest improvements and were ready to show the draft to the jury members. The language of our designer was tied up, so we assigned him the most important task (performance). I, in turn, demonstrated how the application works. Then came tricky questions that we tried to answer with the whole team. He stood there and thought: "We’ve gotten down!" In fact, it turned out differently.
By the way, we took the first place in the field of mobile applications. We received good prizes worth about 10-12 thousand.
So on my laptop appeared the first sticker.
Thanks to the organizers for the opportunity to participate in such an event. Special thanks for reading!
Team building
The idea of creating a small program originated six months ago. I expressed the idea to my classmate, and he decided that it should be implemented as a mobile application. However, on this we completed the development of the project, because then for some reason it was very difficult to organize everything.
Three weeks before the start, while seminars / master classes were held at the REU and KemSU as part of the festival, I accidentally found out about the Hackathon and immediately started looking for a team, taking the almost forgotten idea as a basis. First of all, I invited a classmate with whom we began to design a design. They planned to leave writing the entire program part for the time of the Hackathon, having thought out only the concept. Soon a good designer entered the team, who also made a huge contribution to further work.
So DevCom appeared.
')
What did we know? What owned? In fact, at the time of launch, we had the experience of knowing C ++ and HTML languages, as well as a general idea of object-oriented programming. The complexity of the hackathon was that we were going to write in a little-known language, C #. On the other hand, I was free to change the XAML code, and my friend read specialized literature for all three weeks. In short, even then we understood how interesting the event would be.
The essence of the project
Pretty simple idea. We wanted to make an application that offers users to choose clothes to their liking, depending on the current weather. Perhaps the idea is not new. But, judging by the research we conducted on the stores of the three mobile platforms, there was still no good counterpart. Against the background of our program looked much better.
So, after weighing many aspects, including market aspects, it was decided to write an application under Windows Phone.
UPD: After a year and a half, I brought the idea of the application to release, but already on the Android platform. You can download the program from the market Google Play and poke.
Preparation and start hackathone
Our team came to the site of KemSU (where we spent this weekend) before the participants and organizers. For some time we were simply not allowed into the school, because no one took a passport with them. As it turned out, the guards did not know about the planned event.
Soon we saw familiar faces - these were people from MSP carrying posters and food in our direction. After a while we sat in the creative lounge, anticipating the start of the event.
Sponsors acted. The organizers gave last parting words. The teams presented their ideas. So began the hackathon.
Day
Everyone came with their equipment. We hoped that as soon as we occupied the workplaces, we would start writing code and making some sketches. But in fact, almost all the teams had difficulties: for example, only one of the four operating notebooks was ready for the work process. On the Mac system. On the second, we managed to put the development environment "Visual Studio 2013" and connect to it "Windows Phone" instead of the emulator. The third one was used as a search engine - we were looking for information that could somehow help in the process of constructing C # code. However, at night we found the use of the fourth laptop. Considering that the concept was agreed and approved, we began to work. But even here disagreements arose. It seemed to me that I needed to add more pages for the convenience of the user (about 5), but our designer wanted to place everything on two or three pages. After some time, a compromise was established, and then we started writing the code.
Night
By midnight, something was ready, and it began to seem to us that there was a lot of extra time left, so we decided to take a break. Taking out the fourth laptop, I set up an online broadcast of the event. While the designer was in the video chat, the guys from the team that developed the browser game also decided to take a break and had fun spinning somersaults in front of the cameras. The third person, the coder, tried to figure out C # and at the same time adjust the details of our application. He explained this by saying that the next morning we would hardly have been able to collect our thoughts and do everything as it was intended.
Morning
Especially cheerful was the morning on the Hackathon. I seemed to be thinking, thinking about the project and its implementation, while I was designing the code. But as soon as I moved away from the process for a short while, I almost fell asleep.
I still can not remember what happened in the morning. I know that I was in a panic, realizing that there was not much time left before the project was completed. I wanted more time, but at the same time I dreamed of a dream. There was a desire to quickly go home. Some kind of paradox.Impressions of another team member.
Towards dawn, my thoughts began to distort. I stopped following the behavior and speech, and thus found myself sleeping in chairs shifted to each other. Friends said that I fell asleep for 15 minutes, then I jumped up, suggested an idea about the code to them, and then went back to sleep.
All teams were hard. Perhaps this part of the event was the most severe. Not without help from the organizers.
Demonstration of our project
Development time was coming to an end. We made the latest improvements and were ready to show the draft to the jury members. The language of our designer was tied up, so we assigned him the most important task (performance). I, in turn, demonstrated how the application works. Then came tricky questions that we tried to answer with the whole team. He stood there and thought: "We’ve gotten down!" In fact, it turned out differently.
By the way, we took the first place in the field of mobile applications. We received good prizes worth about 10-12 thousand.
So on my laptop appeared the first sticker.
Results
- Nothing goes as originally planned. Careful preparation does not guarantee victory.
- Participation in the hackathon is an invaluable experience.
- The event involuntarily makes useful contacts. Hackathon is a chance to show, show yourself.
- The process of creating a project is a lot of fun, and at the sight of other working people there is enthusiasm.
- Hackathon should not be taken as a competition. This is a meeting of fans of IT-technology. A place where inspiration comes and ideas flow like water.
- Recovery of the body after the event took a little more than a day.
Thanks to the organizers for the opportunity to participate in such an event. Special thanks for reading!
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/281058/
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