Tales from the Binary World
April 8th to 10th — mark the date. When your computer dreams became code realities, and that idea you came up with during one particularly hot and relaxing shower got funding and turned into a startup. Now, now — don’t get me wrong. This is not going to happen to everyone. Life is tough, then you die, and so on. But Bitcamp is going to be pretty fantastic regardless of how soon it turns you into a (dare I say it?) millionaire. This is partly due to the fact that you can learn more about programming and teamwork at one of these events, than you have in your first year at an engineering program. It’s also because when you put several hundred kids in a room, stock it to the brim with caffeine and computers, and leave it be like a Lord of the Flies style experiment, chances are something pretty memorable is going to happen.
In case you’re wondering what this post is about — it’s about those memorable things that happen at Bitcamp. I’m going to begin with a story that talks about sponsor etiquette.
I’m going to pass the mic over to a friend of mine — Anthony. (clears throat) (drastic voice change) Let’s clear some things up first. This event is huge. Ginormous. There is no way we’re doing this without any funding or sponsors. And so you have a bunch of sponsors at their tables lined up around the perimeter. They tell you about their product and offer you swag, which you casually accept before going to the next table to perform a similar operation. So there I was, running through the sponsors. A lot of what they did was rather fascinating. You had startup incubators, services on and around campus, larger tech companies, the whole shebang. But my mistake was not carrying a bag of any sort. And so with every table I went, my jacket pocket got larger and larger until it reached a point where the casual observer would suspect I had some kind of anatomical deformity. Finally, I came across a table that was willing to give me a tiny bag as part of all they had to offer. I grabbed it and immediately started emptying my coat. It was then they I made eye contact with the chap handling the table. The tension that arose within the next ten seconds was palpable. It was like a staring contest — I was too terrified to shut my eyes. Sweat started dribbling down my forehead. But that didn’t stop my transfer of goods from jacket to bag. No siree — in what was probably my most profound display of shamelessness, I finished transferring, took one last look at him, grabbed a couple of pens, and left.
Sigh. If anyone ever wondered what the appropriate way to conduct yourself when talking to a sponsor was, it’s not that. You should literally go through that last paragraph and do the exact opposite of what was done. And now we take a trip down command prompt lane and talk about some experiences had while hacking.
Pass it along to Harsh this time. We’d stayed up the whole night. My entire team was on the verge of a gigantic nap, but I kept it all going with a continuous flow of stimulants. We had one half of the group working on the back end — an ingenious bit of code that tapped into a database and extracted information from it. The other half was doing UI/UX for an Android interface. The stuff they were coming up with was beautiful… gorgeous… exquisite… and that was just the code. I barely even saw what the user interface guys were doing. Some intersecting party between the two groups would occasionally play some incredibly loud and profane music, but it served as an alarm clock of sorts, so I was fine with it. Our first real problem arose when our back end started spitting out data that it should not have had in the first place. We pondered the philosophical consequences of the hacking we might have just inadvertently done, and then decided that we ought to go for a walk. The Maryland campus is huge, and so within twenty minutes, we had no clue where we were. We rang up a friend native to the area, and had him come fetch us. He took us all on a tour of the campus and then to a pizza place for some additional fuel. On returning, we got back to coding like we’d never coded before, and came up with a construct that (sadly) eliminated our previous error and set the wheels in motion. Soon every member was pacing our table and spouting ‘Eurekas’ like nobody’s business. And with only a few hours left, we had most of what we set out to accomplish complete. An efficient, clean back end. A user friendly and beautiful front end. We fell asleep and woke up shortly before the final submission time. We gave each other a confident and determined look and sat down to attach our two parts. But alas, alack.
Front end worked. Back end worked. They did not connect.
While my friends’ unfortunate tales might taste like an anticlimactic ending, the key takeaway is that Bitcamp isn’t simply about winning. It’s about creating some great memories with friends. It’s about looking back on it and saying — you know, that was fun! Let’s go again.
See you folks on the 8th!
