WarwickTECH hosts hackathon

Boar SciTech: How did WarwickTECH come about?
Alex Bucknall: WarwickTECH was formed over the summer of 2014 following a conversation highlighting the lack of technical students present within Warwick’s existing entrepreneurial societies. I was soon after approached by a couple of my peers with the proposition to found the society.

We positioned it to fit somewhere between Computer Science, Engineering and Warwick Entrepreneurs, drawing elements from all. The society was then founded on the slogan of “For makers, creators and innovators” and designed around developing STEM students into entrepreneurs with both the talent and skills to build products as well as bringing them to market.

Boar SciTech: What does your association with Major League Hacking (MLH) bring to the table?
Alex Bucknall: Our partnership with MLH gives us a fantastic opportunity to tie into a network of highly regarded and successful Hackathons across the world. We were proud to announce our partnership with them, as this is the first year they have run their league in the UK. Being an MLH-affiliated Hackathon brings us huge advantages such as access to their immense hardware lab (including technologies from Oculus Rift, to Leap Motion and more), their affiliated sponsors (this year Bloomberg, Sendgrid, Twilio, to name a few) as well as fantastic support and advice from their team of veteran Hackathon organisers.

Photo: WarwickTECH

Boar SciTech: What does a Hackathon entail?
Alex Bucknall: It’s a common misconception that a ‘hackathon’ is an event that’s attached to theft and destruction of software/hardware. This is about as far as you can get from the real definition of a hackathon.

The original meaning of hack comes from the early days of programming; to work with/create code. A hackathon is a collaborative programming event that often runs for multiple days at a time, where individuals aim to develop themselves through learning and teaching.

Hackathons can often be themed events with specific target goals or just simply a way for individuals to express themselves through the creative mediums of programming and innovation. WarwickHACK is very much a free form event where individuals are presented with a selection of tools, mentors and technologies then given 24 hours to produce something amazing. Although we had some specific elements that made the event more competitive such as Bloomberg’s giveaway prizes of their Parrot mini-drones, the main focus of the event was to provide an environment where individuals can meet like-minded programmers and work with one another with the end goal of building a fantastic project.

Boar SciTech: What were some of your favourite projects of the weekend?
Alex Bucknall: I think my favourite project of the weekend would have to be the continental empires game by a team of students from both the University of Warwick and Nottingham. They had created a strategy game using the Bloomberg API to draw upon historical and realtime data for commodities and goods.

The idea of the game was to increase both the happiness and wealth of your chosen country by selecting a range of options that you could apply to your country as well as an opposing country. One example, humorously, was an option where you could sell Justin Bieber to another country, which increased the happiness of your country, decreased the happiness of the receiving country all whilst decreasing the overall wealth of both countries!

Photo: WarwickTECH

Boar SciTech: What advice would you give to someone with little or no previous programming experience who might be interested in such an event?
Alex Bucknall: My advice would be, come along! WarwickHACK as well as all of the hackathons in the MLH League are open and accessible to beginners. We have mentors on site who can help you get going as well as breakout sessions to help beginners work out where to start. We get a number of experienced programmers attending our events who love to help first time hackers out and are more than willing to bring you on board with their teams to help you learn along the way! Our devotion to encouraging beginners to attend is reflected by our free event tickets. We refuse to impose any sort of barrier to entry for our Hackathons as we want to engage as much of the community as possible!

Boar SciTech: What’s next for WarwickTECH?
Alex Bucknall: WarwickTECH will be going on to host a multitude of events including yet another hackathon in the MLH spring season. We are working closely with the Schools of Engineering and Computer Science to bring a variety of technical development events to campus. Make sure to find us on Facebook and at our website, warwick-tech.co.uk, for more information.