It’s Been One Year
This post doesn't have much of a point, other than to tell my story. This is about my journey through the past year, and all of the things I have experienced.
I know one thing for sure:
I truly wouldn't be the person I am today without hackathons.
For anyone who doesn't know what a hackathon/hacking is about: it’s not about breaking into systems or being destructive. This “hacking” is innovative. It’s about building things, hacking together creative solutions to problems, and making cool apps.
In late 2012–13, a revolution was going on at the University of Michigan. They were taking hackathons by storm. They were changing the culture of universities across the country with MHacks. Meanwhile, as a mere sophomore at the East campus of my high school, International Academy, I began to develop an interest in technology and startups from my FRC Robotics team, an online course, and an entrepreneurship program I participated in.
Fast forward to the end of sophomore year, and I discovered that there was a programming club at the central campus of my high school. Curious about it, I contacted the president of their programming club, Amit.
Before I knew it, Amit convinced me to attend “MHacks”. I had no idea what it was, and all I knew was that it was a programming-related event at the University of Michigan.
Getting along with Amit very well, it was only a matter of weeks before we threw together a team of four. Soon enough, on September 20th, 2013, we all arrived at the second MHacks event.
MHacks II, my first hackathon, completely changed my perspective. I was captured by the community, and I wanted to learn and create so many things. I was in awe of the things students were able to create in a matter of days. Projects ranged from trash cans that sorted recyclable items from non-recyclable items, to websites that taught people how to code.
MHacks II started everything for me.
That was exactly a year ago.
Coming back from the trip, I knew I wanted to share this with my school. Organizing our programming club a bit further, we took 8 other people to MHacks III, and everyone was able to learn and experience the hackathon atmosphere for themselves. The community was on fire.
Around this time, I had also come across a Facebook group called “HS Hackers”. After I joined the group, I discovered a thriving community of high school students that were also hackathon attendees. Little did I know how much the group would come to impact me.
I feel like I grew up with HS Hackers. Although I joined when the group had 300 members, joining the community at the pivot point and watching it grow to the 2000+ size it’s at today, has been an incredible experience. I was able to meet many amazing people through the group, and we talked about topics relevant to technology, programming, school, and (of course) hackathons.
About a month after MHacks III, I decided to attend Blueprint while I was in Boston. Teaming up with Ananya, Clarissa, Linnea, and Tanuj (all HS Hackers), this was an entirely new experience. I was working with complete strangers on a project, and I had no idea what to expect. However, to my surprise, our team managed to get along perfectly. Calling ourselves “Team Serendipity,” we worked on a reminders app, a music conversion app, a Pebble flashcards app, and a last-minute humorous support web app, all in less than 12 hours.
After the event, I noted how these situations occur at almost every hackathon. People are able to meet others, work on innovative and impactful apps, and learn a ton. All in the course of a weekend.
It was around this time that I was rejected to the 2014 Spring PennApps. Looking back, I could not agree more with this status. The biggest impact a hackathon can have, is getting someone new interested in programming. And that’s why I really wanted a CodeDay Detroit. CodeDay was a smaller hackathon, open to anyone and everyone. CodeDay was about learning something new, and building things just because they are “cool”.
So when someone posted in HS Hackers about starting a CodeDay in my area, I jumped at the opportunity.
In less than 10 minutes after that post, I was organizing Codeday Detroit. Over the next few months, I worked with Fisher and Amit to throw the event at a startup in Detroit called “Detroit Labs”. Setting up a hackathon from scratch was an amazing experience, and it inspired me to a whole new level.
Seeing the culture at the small Detroit startup made me curious about the community in Detroit as a whole. Thus, during my summer, I went to a Detroit Drones meetup, a Node.js meetup, and a Startup Circle meetup, and at all of these events I was able to see a different part of the Detroit community. Finally, I ended my summer with a hackathon called hackDPL, which was an event focused on creating an app for the Detroit Public Library in a weekend. Although I didn’t win, I was able to contribute a significant amount to my team’s app, and I was proud for being able to do so. In the process, I was helping out the Detroit Public Library with something that they desperately needed: an app.
“Hackathons are an outlet to change the world”
It sounds cliché, but it’s true. I realized this at HackIllinois, where I spent a weekend learning web development and building vitaminute, a simple web app to bring information about vitamins to everyone. Hackathons are a wonderful outlet to create apps that are both valuable and applicable.
It didn't stop there. Since then, I went to MHacks IV, where my team was lucky enough to win the “Funniest Hack” award for finding a way to flood users’ phones with hundreds of Yos in minutes. I also went to HackTheNorth, and took the entire weekend to learn as much of Android development as I could.
It’s amazing how many people I’ve met over the course of the past year. I’ve been inspired to a whole new level, and I’m lucky to have experienced the things I have. The best part? It’s been only one year.
Edit 8/28/15: I’m currently on the BoilerMake Team. Read my latest article here:
