Hackathon Results: Meet The winners!
The 2021 hackathon had hundreds of student participants and many of them were entitled to prizes depending on the success of their projects. They were allowed to either submit a project alone or to work together as a group. With so many creative ideas it was difficult to pick the award winners, but one project stood out above all the rest: Venusian Village.
The theme of the competition was the “future,” to either solve a real world problem or try to show life in the near future. An added bonus of this event was the fact that these judges were not random people, but they have years of experience and are currently going to prestigious universities or work for big tech companies.
This project was the collaborative effort of four friends, and due to their coding skills they were each able to secure a Nintendo switch.. The team members were: Abhik Ray, Noah Addeo, Hammad Farooqi and Sarthak Mohapatra. They were recently interviewed by our very own Anant Matta on how it felt to win this competition and what’s next.
(This interview has been edited for clarity and length)
Q: Can you tell me about Venusian Village?
A: It’s a build your own civilization game that is centered in the air by venus, as the earth is no longer habitable. Also resources are needed to keep “your people alive and happy.”
Q:Was there anything in particular that inspired you?
A:Fallout shelter was one inspiration, as people are trying to survive underground in a vault. Other inspirations included animal crossing, and the sims games as well
Q: Armed with all this passion, what do you guys have planned next for Venusian Village?
A: We were stressed about the competition, but after that we started to play the game and really enjoyed it. We are thinking about “further developing the game and adding a bunch of new features.”
Q: As participants of the hackathon, how did you feel it went?
A: We thought it was a cool experience, to see a lot of kids working on projects that they cared about.
Q:How do you think FutureHacks has impacted your ability to pursue STEM?
A: Not just with the hackathon, but with any coding competition in general, working on a project gives you a goal and motivation, and “that helped a lot as well as working with other people.” Also, presenting in front of a panel of judges was really helpful.
Q:And finally, after your experience, are you guys interested in joining AiGoLearning?
A: We are definitely interested in joining the program, but we are also going to see what else we can find.
Once again, thanks to everyone who participated in the interview, and a big thank you to everyone’s continued support for the AiGo learning program.
For anyone interested in becoming a part of AiGoLearning or take part in any of its initiatives, you can find them at https://aigolearning.org. Similarly, if you’re interested in taking a look at FutureHacks2021 and some of the amazing submissions, feel free to take a look at futurehacks.net or our Devpost at futurehacks-2021.devpost.com.
