First Hackathon Win @ FemmeHacks
The one where we get nominated by Facebook as Best Social Good Hack
With only twenty four hours, what can anyone build?
The question use to dawn on me especially since startups typically take months, if not years, to launch and kickstart their company. After FemmeHacks (a UPenn organised event), I realised that you can do absolutely everything and anything within 24 hours — whether it’s to learn a new skill, create a MVP, launch a startup or cry for two hours and get back up again.
So, what did we build?
We built an App where users receive phone calls automatically whenever it’s time to take their scheduled medications (see our Devpost submission here).
The spiel: It’s easy to forget when to take your medication especially in the bustling and dynamic place we live today 🌍. As a result, we wanted to make a medicine reminder app but we wanted it to be a more fun and an enjoyable experience for users. So, we decided to add a cheeky call and messaging function too! 😊
The design foundation was built on Figma (duh), coding done on Android Studio (Github repo here), and utilised Google’s Firebase to store user credentials (we mainly used it to be on the running for Google’s Best Use of Cloud services prize which we ended up winning too).
I initially joined hackathons to immerse myself in the tech world and to, eventually, learn how to code but I was still extremely hesitant to do so. Instead, I worked wholly on the Figma wireframes and design of the presentation.
The App also has other cute functions:
- “Visual Happiness” — it’s a section of the App where users can view visually pleasing photos which hopes to stimulate positive emotions of serenity, peace and happiness.
- “Find Friends” — users can schedule calls with random and anonymous people. If all things goes well, they can further connect and message each other.
Like everything in life, nothing is ever linear.
Setbacks
We were only able to get in the basic functionalities of the user interface so the App did not look remotely close to the Figma designs since we had difficulty (more like Nishi and T who were my technical team mates and the powerhouse of the project) in integrating the Twilio API for easier call to message function, and it was their first time using GitHub, collaborating on a coded project together as such.
Timezones was also a problem since I fell asleep during prime hours of the Hackathon (I’m in the Hong Kong timezone so Hackathons typically launch at midnight haha — both a blessing and a curse). So Nishi & T concluded that I dipped.
When I woke up, I reassured them that I am there and quickly created the video, reworded the Devpost submission and made the cover page.
I attempted to make it up by doing a live demo for the Directors of FemmeHacks while my partners took a break. We won a $20 Amazon Gift Card for demoing!
What did I take away from this?
- Very important: Tell your partners to not panic when what may or may not happen — this is better for planning and collaboration haha
And more broadly, I generally do not know what I want to do in life since I’m interested in everything and anything. I’d throw myself into whatever problem or opportunity that comes my way but since time is finite, I’ve come to learn that this is a terrible idea. As a result, I continue hoping to narrow down interests through learning and developing seven skills everyday (hence, my Renaissance Human project).
After FemmeHacks, I narrowed it down and know I actually genuinely do enjoy prototyping and designing.
If you get the chance to, please please join a Hackathon. It’s great and incredibly fun (and rewarding)! Whether you come from a humanities or science background, you can test whether tech, design, business strategy and ideation is for you. Even if you decide that it isn’t, you get to network with some amazing students and campus recruiters from top companies (so far, I’ve met with Citadel, Bloomberg, IBM, and Adobe reps .. just to name a few ;)
The Finale
Did we expect to win? Of course, as a human being who’s terribly biased, I innately deeply wished our project received a prize of some sort however with the product we created, I thought our chances were low.
As I lay on my bed ready to fall asleep after the closing ceremony (timezones) with my eyes shuttering, Facebook’s rep said: “We were really impressed by the efforts of Mobile Medicine. It was really creative so well done!!”
I jumped and spammed the group chat.
