Most students could not imagine working on a school project for more than 10 hours straight. However, approximately 60 University of Wisconsin-Madison students, ranging from freshmen to masters, competed in a Facebook-sponsored hackathon Friday and Saturday of last week.
A hackathon is a programming marathon where groups of “hackers” attempt to produce a functional website or app within a time period—usually in the absence of sleep.
The hackathon, which took place in the Tong Auditorium in the Engineering Centers Building, started at 5 p.m. Friday and ended about 22 hours later.
“Coffee helped,” UW-Madison senior Kevin McDonald said.
There were several special parts to the competition because Facebook, the social network giant, hosted the event. For example, many groups integrated Facebook and its API (application programming interface), which is what allows users to login to and use their information on other websites or apps, such as Spotify.
Groups worked on projects such as games, chat services, event planners, educational programs and mobile apps—all of which worked well with the social aspect of Facebook.
According to staff, famous hackathon inventions include chat, “liking,” video features and calendar events.
“The idea of Facebook hackers is for solving problems that aren’t immediately obvious,” Facebook programming engineer Ryan Patterson said.
“Groups build whatever they want to build, something they would use or the world would use,” Facebook employee, university recruiter and leader of the hackathon Jordan MacDonald said.
The goal of these events are to inspire hackers to build quickly, functionally and globally according to MacDonald. The teams were graded by two criteria: idea and execution. At 3 p.m. Saturday, groups showed off their (mostly) completed projects in a two-minute demo, with the judges’ results being announced at 4 p.m.
Of course, there was a prize for the best program. The winning group, as judged Facebook programming engineers, received a trip to Facebook headquarters in California in order to compete in the Facebook hackathon finals, as well as a few gadgets. The winners of that final round will receive the possibility of full-time positions at the company itself.
A chat service named Flock claimed first place in the hackathon this year. Members included graduate student Zainab Ghadiyali, junior Guilherme Santos and freshmen Jon Morton and Lucas Mullens. Their service distributes, or “buckets,” online chatters into groups based on interests.
“I watched a lot of online video streams,” said Morton, who came up with the project. “The chat room is just flooded. That’s where we got the idea.”
Morton has been coding since he was 12 and Mullens since he was 10. The members were mostly strangers before they bonded over this hackathon.
Ghadiyali also won the preliminary round of the Facebook hackathon last year with her team’s website, GoodMate.
Ghadiyali looks forward to the competition at the Facebook HQ, but “we’re not going to prepare, it’s not in the spirit of the hackathon,” the tech veteran said. “I learned so much. I’m left feeling inspired after a hackathon. What can I do now?”
