UD’s Department of Computer and Information Sciences’ student organization, the Computing Promotions Undergraduate Squad (CPUs), hosted its second annual beginner-friendly “hackathon” earlier this month.

Hack to save the world

Article by Jessica Gardner and Erica K. Brockmeier Photos courtesy of Seth Fields and Toni Morakinyo March 19, 2024

Computer science student group hosts second annual regional HenHacks Hackathon

Avi Glasco, a prospective University of Delaware cybersecurity student, spent 24 hours working with a team of UD students creating a to-do list and course logger for organizing schedules and assignments.

“It’s nice to have creative control of what you make. Of course there's the different categories you choose from, but I like that you can submit multiple entries if whatever you’re making falls into multiple categories,” Glasco said.

Glasco was one of more than 300 “hackers” who participated in the second annual HenHacks hackathon, which took place at Smith and Gore halls during the first weekend of March. This beginner-friendly event was an opportunity for students to enhance their technical skills while working on projects around the theme of “Hack to Save the World.”

A crash course in solving real-world problems with technology

Hackathons are events during which students work collaboratively to come up with technical solutions for a specific problem during a constrained period of time. Students can work in teams or independently, and for many types of hackathons no previous coding or programming experience is required.

Nazim Karaca, an instructor in the College of Engineering’s Department of Computer and Information Sciences, said that while there are many reasons for students to participate in a hackathon, from an achievement to put on their résumé to winning a prize for their project, one of the biggest benefits is the opportunity to apply their creativity toward solving a real-world problem.

Students worked for a full 24 hours on their “hacks” during the event, which took place at Smith and Gore halls.

“Some of the Hackathon ideas get spun off into actual implementations, which demonstrates how a brainstorming session can help make the world a better place,” Karaca said. “Students are extremely creative in the hacks that they come up with and very resourceful in assembling them, and seeing how much they can do in just 24 hours is impressive.”

HenHacks is organized by the Computing Promotion Undergraduates Squad (CPUs), whose goal is to foster student engagement in the department, along with computer science faculty and student volunteers.

Now in its second year, HenHacks has become a popular regional event that draws in computer science talent from schools across the Mid-Atlantic. This year’s Hackathon welcomed 45 students from other universities, including Swarthmore College, Pennsylvania State University, University of Maryland, Delaware Technical Community College and Wilmington University.

Along with completing a specific project, the hackathon also includes professional development workshops in collaboration with event co-sponsors. These corporate partnerships help enrich the educational aspect of the hackathon, with the entire event functioning as an application-based learning experience, said Faith Lovell, the HenHacks “Head Coordinator” and CPUs member.

“A lot of companies are really interested in supporting events like this,” Lovell added. “We're in a great area for it with Wilmington, Philly, D.C., Virginia. Regional companies really like our students and wanted to get involved.”

24 hours of coding, learning and socializing

HenHacks participants split into small groups and created projects that fit into a variety of categories, from programs focused on computer science education to ones that relied on artificial intelligence and machine learning.

Multiple companies sponsored this year’s hackathon, with a “Meet the Companies” hour on Saturday for students to network.

Several companies also conducted professional development workshops on a variety of topics. Software company Labware hosted a workshop on best practices for using SmallTalk (one of the competition’s mini-categories). University of Delaware alumni from Google hosted a zoom webinar on life at Google and Google AI. Front-end developers from MasterCard, another sponsor, organized a user experience workshop on how students could make their projects accessible to people who don’t know about computer science.

(From left) Sneha Nangelimalil, Aparna Roy and Benita Abraham pose with the Meta Quest goggles that they won for their Talk to the Hand hack. Roy and Abraham are honors students.

“Along with being here and sponsoring and seeing all the awesome projects kids are putting together, we’re also trying to get people to know about Smalltalk,” LabWare Consultant Riley Prosser said. “We have a summer program that helps kids learn SmallTalk and University of Delaware is one of the biggest pools that we draw from since we’re locally based out of Wilmington Delaware.”

This year, the HenHacks organizers went beyond skill-building workshops and heavy-duty programming sessions by fostering a fun and pleasant experience. Participants enjoyed breaks with food and games, such as Lego building, bingo, Just Dance and more. The hacking spaces in Smith and Gore halls were also designed for comfort and featured blankets, lap desks and cozy decor to enhance the student experience.

“It’s been great. I’ve noticed a lot of improvement since the last [UD] Hackathon. This is by far the best Hackathon I’ve been to,” said Aparna Roy, a junior honors student majoring in computer science whose hack, Talk to the Hand, won the Labware Connections mini category.

‘A feeling of accomplishment’

The full list of winners is available on the HenHacks devpost website; some of the winners include a yoga pose detection and correction platform (winner of the Best Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning Hack) and an accessibility app for students with dyslexia (winner of the Best Accessibility Hack).

Lovell hopes that all of the Hackathon participants took away a “valuable memory, experience and a feeling of accomplishment” from this event.

“It’s a really unique opportunity, especially because we don't have hackathons like this anywhere in the area,” she said. “They're meeting new people, they've created a project that will help them when they're applying to jobs in the future. They get to put this on their resumes. This is something that companies typically look for is some experience with some project like this, and they get to have fun.”

“At first it was a bit stressful because you don’t know what you’re gonna do and you have too little ideas or too many ideas,” said Gael Lucero-Palacios, a first-year computer science major who worked on creating a community engagement platform. “Filtering down to one idea is difficult, but once you get through that initial process and you’ve got your idea, it’s all about collaboration and working together as a team. Then, at the end, it's rewarding.”