OSU App Center and ACM announce the Spring 2022 Hackathon winners
Thursday, April 7, 2022
Media Contact: Kim Watkins | Communications Coordinator | 405-744-3546 | kimberly.watkins@okstate.edu
The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) and OSU App Center announced the winners from its first Hackathon event recently.
The ACM is a student chapter chartered in April 1966. ACM affords students perks such as a guest speaker from the computing field, developing professional computing contacts, touring local facilities, competing in programming contests, career development, and social, fundraising, volunteer opportunities and recently hackathon competitions.
The OSU App Center is an on-campus resource for OSU students and faculty for mobile app development needs.
ACM and OSU App Center conducted the first mobile and web app hackathon event on March 25-27. The hackathon invited software developers to develop a web or mobile application that will solve a real-world problem. Prize money at this year’s hackathon totaled more than $2,000.
The theme for the spring 2022 hackathon was Enhancing the Quality of Life of Stillwater Residents. Contestants were judged on originality such as the uniqueness of the app idea and if it fulfills a real need, how well the project is presented and technical quality of the app, including user interface, good engineering, development practices, execution and impact — adherence to the given theme and potential impact to the public.
A panel of judges deliberated over the web and mobile app submissions. The hackathon is known for preparing students for the pressure of application development with a time requirement. The competition begins on Friday in a campus classroom and the students often do not leave until the judging, which takes place Sunday afternoon.
"Such hackathons are the type of event that boost inspiration, innovation, creativity and productivity of the students," said first time judge Sachin Jain, an OSU teaching assistant professor in the Department of Computer Science.
The panel of judges consisted of OSU professors, OSU Chief Information Officer Raj Murthy and a local web development business owner. The feedback between students and professional is a key advantage before graduating and moving into the professional world of app development.
Hackathons offer students a glimpse into the focus it requires to complete an app from scratch to fruition.
"Hackathons offer the students the opportunity to apply the knowledge and skills they learn in their class to a real-life application," OSU student Brennan Schlittler said,
This year’s first place award went to Chrisantus Eze with his app for Lake McMurtry. Team Kicker tied for first place, both with an app for trails and details of Lake McMurtry. Third place went to Orange Park application where the team came up with and implemented an Airbnb type app for game day parking.
If you would like to donate to the hackathon awards or help with the hackathon, please contact Jai Hari Rajendran, technology and business development manager at the OSU App Center at jair@okstate.edu.