Yesterday (and technically the day before) was CompE (Computer Engineering) Club's annual 24 hour long Hackathon.
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| So happy to be in CompE Club, such a good decision |
For those of you who don't know, participants of the Hackathon had from 12 noon on Saturday to 12 noon on Sunday to start (from scratch) and complete a project of their desire. Most of these projects were software applications, but there were various devices and sensors involved in some of them.
For our project, my partner and I created a Google Chrome Extension that would allow users to Tweet directly from the Chrome Omnibox (the box where the website url's show). It took us all night because we kept running into problems authenticating users with Twitter. The reason for that is Twitter didn't like the fact that it was a Chrome Extension trying to access user's data and blocked us. Eventually we found a work-around that involved the users to give use there data directly. The extension allowed users to Tweet an average of 15 seconds faster on the desktop. And because you don't have to open Twitter to Tweet, you can post without getting distracted by the Tweets of those you follow on Twitter.
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| My partner and I on Saturday afternoon. |
Hackathon's are kind of weird in the fact that the judging of the projects does not require you to show any of the code. Instead it's all about the presentation and the demo. My partner and I appropriately named our app "ShoutBox" (what a marketable name!) and the presentation that followed was much the same. Some how we were the last to present and immediately picked up the energy in the room with excited shouting and wow-factor. In other words I used my ridiculously loud voice and personality to amaze the judges into giving us third place. Third place! We had a really good idea, really good implementation and topped it off with a really good presentation. I'm really proud of us.
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| After winning on Sunday with another CompE club member |
The app ran on a Node.JS server we had on my partners laptop so it's unusable now, but hopefully in the summer I can work on it to get it to the app store. After 24 hours of hacking it's clear to see what we have to do. Because Twitter wouldn't give us the proper oauth tokens, I just have to create a separate website that communicates between the extension and Twitter. Obviously it won't be as easy as that, hopefully I'll have time to do it in the summer and all of you can have ShoutBox!
Even though I stayed up all night and struggled so much and now have loads of homework to do, it feels great to have competed. Again, I'm really proud.
Innovating Life
~ASKalburgi