Hackathon attracts over 100 engineering students | Jobs Vox

More than 100 U of Computer Science and Computer Engineering students spent 24 hours competing in the Association for Computing Machinery’s hackathon, held overnight on 11-12 November. The programming contest was sponsored by JB Hunt and SupplyPike.

107 students were divided into 23 teams. On November 11 at around 6 p.m., the teams were given a prompt: within the next 24 hours, develop some sort of “smart home” device. The students had until 5:30 p.m. the next day, and many of the teams worked on their programs all night. The association provided food and drink for the participants, and staff from the Department of Computer Science and Computer Engineering provided logistical support.

The competition was judged by Wing Ning Lee, professor of computer science and computer engineering; Ritik Patel, computer science and computer engineering alumnus and past Association for Computing Machinery president; Tyler Tracy, computer science and computer engineering alumnus and SupplyPike engineer; Chandler Abbott, SupplyPike Operations Executive; Dana Lepen, manager of engineering and technology at JB Hunt; and Greg Judkins, senior director engineering and technology at JB Hunt.

The winning team, dubbed the “Big Dogs”, was composed of computer science seniors Jose Martinez, Austin Flynn, Marvin Violantes, Alexis Mercado, Steven Liang, and honors college computer science student Sam LeForge. His project, titled “Iron Man’s House”, consisted of home appliances controlled by hand gestures.

For presentation purposes, the team demonstrated hand gestures controlling the speaker’s audio levels. In addition to the first-place team, nine other students took home prizes including 3D printers, gaming monitors, virtual reality headsets, AirPods Pro, keyboards, gaming mice, Arduino Mega kits and additional prizes from SupplyPike.

“The entire ACM team at the University of Arkansas is excited by the Hackathon turnout this semester,” said Jack Norris, president of the association. “There were an unprecedented number of teams and participants who demonstrated their creativity and problem-solving skills to the judges and their fellow students. We expect to see even more next semester as we continue to grow ACM.”