Use the force, and get it done
What can you do when a task requires knowledge you don’t have?
Go back or go forward — if you only know how.
Hackathons are always different. Some tasks to solve can be really difficult. For example, recently at HackONE Silesia in Katowice, two teams (in the Internet of Things category) withdrew without presentation of the concept. Though, huh?
The crew from the Explorer HQ Białystok team composed of Michał Jurowczyk (Eyedea) and Konrad Kotelczuk (Aitwar) had a hard time from the very beginning. Electronic engineer from their team backed out just before the party.
The challenge
One can easily imagine how much his competencies were needed — the task of hackathon sounds:
“Imagine that we have lighting infrastructure of a production or storage hall, connected using a wireless protocol (let’s say it’s Bluetooth, but it can be anything else). You can connect something to the luminaires (maybe sensors, maybe cameras, maybe beacons, maybe something else?).
The goal is to create new functionality, a new product that would solve a specific problem of a production or warehouse company “
The team from Białystok was joined by Marek from Katowice, who is not even close to electronic engineering, but regulations clearly says that minimum size of the team was three people, so there was no sense to be picky.
From the very beginning, a very strong emphasis was placed on the fact that the proposed solution should not only be an elegant concept, but it should bring real benefits for the client. The task description explicitly stated that this hypothetical recipient of the idea is a person open to innovation, favorable to new solutions, but extremely rational and focused on real benefits.
Let’s make it done
In other words, the concept was not only to look good but above all to work well and be within sensible and comprehensible budget limits.
Well, because chickening out at the beginning was not an option, they had to deal without electronic engineer.
So — brainstorming and deep research. Hours on the Internet, hours on the phone (because, as it turned out, not all devices have a detailed specification available — especially those cheaper ones). Electronic engineers have such information in mind, but the electronic engineer in the team was missing…
There were plenty of ideas for solving the task, too many of them actually. The Golden Circle method, which is well-known to Michał, came to help. We use it a lot (and also improve it) in Eyedea. First of all, thanks to a precise response to WHY, HOW, WHAT, concepts that did not exactly correspond to the topics raised in the challenge were sifted away.
The idea that went through all the screens was a control panel based on a model for providing lighting as a service. Thanks to this panel, the operator of the lighting system have full insight into the state of all system components, which helps prevent failures with potentially serious consequences.
Small detail, huge loss
One must realize that the failure of lighting in a large production hall does not only mean that somewhere there will be a little darker. Insufficient lighting can mean stopping production until the failure is removed — for reasons of work safety and regulations related to it. And that will cost real money.
Therefore, knowing which light sources are close to the limit of their lifetime, where the luminaire overheats, or at which point in the system anomalies was found cannot be overestimated.
An additional element of the proposed solution was the use of machine learning. Thanks to this, the whole thing is easily scalable, it is also easy to evaluate the price of the final product depending on the level of its complications.
What innovation means?
Our lads honestly say that it is not like there are no similar solutions in the world. They are, of course. But it is worth remembering that these are mostly closed systems that can not be easily and cheaply adapted to specific needs, and whose components are expensive.
The proposal presented at HackOne was very well thought out not only in terms of technology but also — and perhaps above all — in terms of business. A scalable system based on cheap components has been proposed, thanks to which this type of service can become available to those users who can not afford to use the solutions of great players.
Does it work?
Since you already know all this, it’s time to ask yourself about the place you have taken — after all, Hackathon is a competition. There can only be one answer — the first!
This clearly shows how flexible mind, cooperation and appropriate, tried and tested methods of solving problems can break up any issue, even if the team lacks certain key competencies.
