Hackathon in progress. – Photos courtesy of NUS ACM

For 48 hours over a weekend in September, more than 80 students thought code, talked code and built code as they wrestled with the challenges presented to them during the largest-ever student-run hackathon in Singapore.

Developer Weekend 2012, which was organised by the National University of Singapore (NUS) Student Chapter of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), began on 22 September. The teams were given 13 challenges to choose from, and had to develop a solution using platforms such as Windows 8, Web or Android.

For NUS ACM, which was organising the hackathon for the first time, the main objectives of the event were to encourage students to come up with ideas and develop applications that were useful in real-life, and to expose them to the various development platforms available such as Android and Windows 8,
said Mr Rahul Rajeev, Chairperson, NUS ACM.

In coming up with the challenges for the hackathon, the organiser sought to make them as open-ended as possible without being too generic. They also had to be interesting from the students’ perspective and tackle problems that people could relate to, said Ms Khyathi Nirmal Kumar, Vice Chairperson, NUS ACM.

Team TEP with Mr Wu Yingjun (extreme left) and Associate Professor Lee Wee Sun, Vice Dean of Undergraduate Studies at the NUS School of Computing (extreme right).

One challenge which resonated with the participants was to build a solution to encourage innovative study methods. “A lot of students find studying really boring because of the large amount of content that they need to understand and apply. Innovative study methods that can make studying interesting for students and encourage them to work harder and perform well, are really needed in this age where it is very easy to get distracted and lose interest in studies,” said Ms Khyathi.

Another interesting challenge was to come up with a solution to optimise waiting time. “We often queue up and wait at crowded places such as food courts. We wanted the students to explore different ways in which this waiting time could be better used or optimised,” explained Ms Khyathi.

Developer Weekend began with about 10 hours of workshops on various topics including Windows 8, Android, Windows Azure and Web development, which were conducted by experts in the field. They included speakers from Microsoft, Planetary, HackerSpaceSG and Teamie, amongst others.

Equipped with a plan of action and the necessary tools to execute their ideas, the students then embarked on a marathon coding session which ended on Sunday afternoon. After that, the teams presented their solution during a two-hour pitching session.

One of the winners of the hackathon was Team TEP from NUS, which developed a twitter- style app to help students in their research work. TEP team member Mr Wu Yingjun, a PhD student at the School of Computing, noted that students and researchers often came across interesting articles on the Internet but were not able to read them immediately. The TEP solution helps them by providing a lightweight version of OneNote or Evernote, which allows them to capture the links for later reference, he said.

The study challenge was also taken up by the other hackathon winner, Team NuDroid. Its approach was to develop an Android app called Playbook, to facilitate learning through games.

Developer Weekend began with about 10 hours of workshops on various topics including Windows 8, Android, Windows Azure and web development.

Team thACk , comprising of two students from Anglo-Chinese Junior College were winners of the Best Newbie App Award for their idea of a local social network for students, while the Most Innovative App category was won by Team GameChangers. Their Android app, BookSpot, uses indoor localisation techniques for easy access to library books and helps circulate book recommendations among users.

For the organisers, Developer Weekend 2012 was “an amazing learning experience”. “From liaising with sponsors and speakers through long threads of email conversations to brainstorming about ways of keeping the participants motivated throughout the night of the hackathon, each phase of planning and execution for this event was very exciting,” said Ms Khyathi.

It was also gratifying to hear from participants, who said that the event encouraged them to think out of the box. “The concept that ‘The best way to learn is to challenge yourself’ was well received,” she added.

Developer Weekend 2012 was supported by the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA) under its iSTART programme for tech user groups. “Events like this bring together the developer community for sharing of knowledge and collaboration in the latest technologies,” said Mr Robert Kim, Director of Consumer Infocomm at IDA. “IDA’s intent is to support developer events that empower the community to stay ahead of the curve, learning skills that are not typically taught in schools and courses. It provides the local developer and tech community with an opportunity to build capabilities in these latest technologies.”