MetroHackNight V
As #bigdata and IoT products continue to saturate various industries, we’re witnessing a spike in hackathons focused on civic issues. Back in 2013, a number of federal agencies dubbed June 4th “National Day of Civic Hacking”, spawning a barrage of tech events centered around technical solutions to city-wide problems.
Sponsored by Mobility Lab, the Transportation Techies Meetup.com group has spent the last ~3 years establishing a strong community of tinkerers, dedicated to improving how folks get around town. I was thrilled to receive an invitation to present a side project of mine — a command-line utility for WMATA arrivals — so I hopped on the yellow line and made my way over to WeWork Crystal City.
Atop the partially residential/partially commercial Crystal Plaza 6, Michael Schade artfully converted the WeWork lounge & kitchen area into a welcoming event space. A dataviz geek by trade, Schade has organically grown Transportation Techies into a community of nearly 1,600 ‘techies’, hosting events in Boulder, CO & Washington, DC. His work has not gone unnoticed; in fact, WMATA hosted the previous Metro Hack Night at their HQ!
After a bit of pizza and socializing, the event kicked off with an emoji puzzle challenge. Guests who could correctly guess the Metro station were awarded some sweet WMATA swag; unfortunately, I left empty-handed. The presentations were as fascinating as they were diverse — we saw Java simulations modelling the morning rush, capacity analysis tools, an Amazon Echo app, and even a Python project that announces location-specific bus & rail time announcements via Raspberry Pi! We were fortunate to have the folks behind MetroHero and IsMetroOnFire.com in attendance, as they demonstrated how information crowd-sourced via Twitter can inform commuters decision-making.
To sum it all up, Metro Hack Night has earned a permanent position in my calendar. Get in touch with Transportation Techies via Twitter (@techiesDC) or Meetup. Special thanks to Michael Schade (@mvs202) for hosting a wonderful event.
