Rocket.Build Community Hackathon: Event Recap

By: Kristen Eckman

This past weekend, Wentworth CO-OPS + CAREERS hosted the Rocket.Build Community Hackathon inviting students from the Boston area to participate in a 32-hour long hacking challenge. Participants completed challenges and designed specific hacks based on the following themes:

Best Housing Hack

Best Transportation and Mobility Hack

Best Environmental Hack

Best Rising Water Impact Hack

Best Job Portal for Highly Skilled Immigrants Hack

Best Connecting Community to Hackathons Hack

The Rocket.Build Community Hackathon was made possible through partnership between Wentworth and Rocket Software along with significant support from faculty and student organizers from the Computer Science Society, HackWITus, and Accelerate.

Participants began hacking Saturday morning after an opening ceremony facilitated by Anjali Arora, Rocket Software Chief Product Officer. Throughout the two-day event Rocketeers, alongside Wentworth faculty and staff, volunteered their time to lead breakout sessions on topics including “Technical Interviewing”, “HTTP Servers & Databases”, and “Predicting Boston Housing Prices Using AI”.

 

RS Hackathon

 

Nearly one hundred students from eight Boston area colleges and universities attended the event, while 64 went on to present their hacks in teams to a panel of Rocket judges Sunday afternoon. Prizes were awarded based on the following categories:

Judges Pick for Community Build: Hyperdome – An anonymous help line with no fear of stigma or consequences.

Created by: Skyelar Craver, Steven Pitts

Environmental Hack: Trash Tag Tracker – Used the #trashtag movement to inspire reporting locations to be cleaned up.

Created by: Bruce Craig, Vincent Jodice, Andrew Bissel, Griffen Campbell, and Corey Everett

Connecting Community Hack: C Squared – A Portal to match volunteers with non-profits.

Created by: Damian Barrows, Mason Osborn, Joe Schnachert, Keidon London, and Simon Wang

Rising Water Hack: Waterfront – Educate Boston residents on susceptibility to flooding.

Created by: Ethan Arrowood, Julia Connor, and Colin Hennessy

Housing Hack: Homefront – Site for user submitted information on homes for safety.

Created by: Gia Hill, Ryan Clonrety, and Yali Izzo

Special Award for Resilience: Green Posh –  They lost 2 of 5 members during the night! Empower reduced consumption.

Created by: Nate Bland, Teddy Gadie, James Sidhom, and Camille Calabrese

Check out all hacks submitted here: https://rs-hackathon-2019.devpost.com/submissions

 

RS Hackathon

 

The event was a robust experience and recruiting opportunity as students applied their academic and creative problem-solving skills, interacted with Rocket Software staff (mentors, hiring managers, HR professionals) and persevered under a demanding deadline with little sleep. All students gained experience to build their skill set (and resumes) and five co-op opportunities were awarded to Wentworth students!

Technical skills strengthened by hacking:

  • Team formation, collaboration and management
  • Public presentation skills
  • Research, ideation and problem solving
  • Honed programming skills in coding languages
  • Used new software programming tools
  • Built servers, websites and apps
  • Designed complex databases
  • Applied high level math
  • Used AI/Machine Learning for predictive modelling

RS Hacking

 

Thank you to all who participated and volunteered this weekend to make The Rocket.Build Community Hackathon a success! Stay tuned for more events like this one. Keep up-to-date through our Events Page.

 

Check out what Rocket Software had to say about their experience at Wentworth:

ROCKET.BUILD COMMUNITY: A NEW GLOBAL TRADITION

MENTORING AT THE FIRST ROCKET.BUILD COMMUNITY HACKATHON

 

More photos from the event can be found here.

By eckmank