On day two of nwHacks the energy is high, even though most of the teams haven’t gotten much sleep. They are half way through a 36 hour hackathon and their ideas are starting to bring prototypes to life. Here is a small sample of the teams at nwHacks.
The Veloci Penguins (pictured above) are using game dynamics to help motivate people to develop eco-friendly habits. James Hannah, Chris Hamilton, Adam Brykajlo (all SFU students) and Emanuel Sales (a local high school student) are designing a game that, by using data from the Mojio API, will award points when a player reduces the amount they use their car. Inspired by HabitRPG, the team anticipates that the game could be expanded to include a number of eco-friendly behaviors you set yourself. Rewards would be used to develop a character within the game or alter the character’s environment. The team sees gamification as a way to use people’s delight in immediate gratification towards the more long-term goals of improving the environment.
Team Sixpence is developing a solar powered autonomous vehicle. Felix van Oost, Mitchell Ho, Omar Abdelghang and Nick Andersen (ECE students) and Alexander Tsang (Commerce) are converting a remote control car to run on solar power, using a series of capacitors for energy storage. They are also incorporating a number of sensors so the vehicle can avoid obstacles and run autonomously. Using a Tessel, they will add sensors that allow the vehicle to report back about it’s environment: a camera and humidity sensors. They anticipate that a small, autonomous solar power vehicle could be useful to investigate remote areas. By communicating through wifi the vehicle could be controlled from anywhere in the world.
UBC computer science students, Erica Lin, John Hsu, Austin Chen, Edward Zhou and Jim Chiang, collectively know as the Team Hortons, are working on an Android app designed to leverage the power of social networks to improve the environment. Using the app people will be able to design environmental challenges and others in the network can except the challenge, share their progress and receive rewards.
Students from SFU’s IdEA (The Inter-disciplinary Entrepreneurship Association) brought their 3D printer to nwHacks and it is cranking out super cool stuff. IdEA brings together students with different skills to help each other make their ideas tangible. 3D printing, as a quick and easy way to develop prototypes, can help student entrepreneurs develop their designs. Siv Padhy, one of IdEA’s members points out, “Working with people from many disciplines can help bring out strengths you never knew you had. Arts students working on technical problems, science students working in communications; people learn from each other and see what they are capable of while everyone is doing what they can to help move a project forward.”
IdEA members Siv Padhy, Eric Liu, Guninde Chandi, Simon Smith, Ali Darbehani, Jessie Tran, Joanne Zhao, Steven Huang, Henry Fok and Mark Wijiya have all come to help teams competing at nwHacks build their prototypes with the 3D printer.