Community Spotlight: Hackers & Mentors of HackCamp 2023
HackCamp is our hackathon dedicated to beginners in the world of tech. In our Community Spotlights, we aim to highlight these diverse stories and experiences that come from fresh perspectives.
This article is a collection of hacker and mentor spotlights from HackCamp 2023. We hope that their stories inspire you to try something new in tech!
Responses have been edited for length and clarity.
Hackers
Geo, Mattias, Jihoon, Mostafa
What brought you to HackCamp?
Mattias: Personally, I wanted to do HackCamp because I know hackathons are a great way to learn new languages and skills, especially since HackCamp is super beginner-friendly. Since I’m new to computer science, it was a great opportunity for me to ease into new things like Figma, Python, HTML, and CSS. The competition side allows you to get a project out of it, which is also helpful when you’re applying to internships in the future.
Geo: Hackathons provide a great excuse to set aside time to focus purely on programming.
Mattias: You could learn HTML and CSS by yourself, but the workshops force you to put aside an hour of your time to learn it. With self-learning, you can procrastinate.
What has been your favourite part of HackCamp so far?
Mostafa: Working as a team has been really fun. In most of our class projects, we work individually, but getting to work with the team and get to know each other has been great.
Jihoon: It’s my first time working as a team. I didn’t really know how to collaborate with others so this is a really good chance for me to learn that. I also think that this experience will help me land a job in the future.
Mattias: We’ve only had experience working alone, but today we learned how to collaborate using GitHub. We ran into some challenges, but we overcame them — and I think that prepares us in the future for most jobs where you’ll have to collaborate in a team to build a project. It’s definitely a useful skill to have.
Can you tell us about your project and how you came up with the idea?
Mattias: We knew the theme was accessibility, diversity, and inclusivity, so we wanted to tackle a problem that people with disabilities face — one of them was communication-based problems, so we narrowed it down to people with hearing loss. From research, we found that deafness is very prevalent and a fast growing disability in Canada, and that people who are deaf face many communication barriers. From there, we started thinking about how we could provide a solution to that, and we landed on an English to ASL translator. We’re using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.
How did you become a team?
Mostafa: On the day of the hackathon, I didn’t have a teammate. I was late to the opening ceremony when I ran into this team and ended up working with them.
Mattias: It also happens that one of [Mostafa’s] strengths is JavaScript, so he’s definitely pulling his weight. It’s the luck of the draw that he was arriving to the opening ceremony as we were leaving.
Talib
How did you hear about HackCamp and what drew you to it?
I first heard about HackCamp from my brother, who knew one of the organizers. He thought it would be a great way for me to learn programming.
Can you tell us about the project you’re working on and how you came up with the idea?
I wanted to go with something pretty simple given that I don’t have a lot of experience, so a web scraper came into the mix. My idea right now is to try to find the cheapest phones you can, using a web scraper. I’m using Python for that.
What’s the one most important thing you’ve learned throughout this whole experience?
The most important thing that I learned was to not give up on your programming because one little thing can change the whole trajectory. You’ll feel like you can’t do it anymore, but as soon as you fix it, there’s a feeling of “I did it, I can do it”. So don’t give up.
Do you have any feedback on the experience overall or the resources provided to you?
I felt that the TAs and mentors were extremely helpful. A couple of hours ago, I was really stuck and didn’t know what to do. I went up to a mentor and he completely guided me through the entire process — and I understood everything. A lot of the times I ask people for help, they just do it and they don’t tell me how anything works. So it was really helpful for me to have a mentor who went through the entire process, throughout both Build Day and Learn Day, teaching me how things worked.
Mentors
Minh
Could you introduce yourself?
My name is Minh and I’m a second year computer science student. My first ever hackathon was nwHacks, and it really struck something in me. That’s why I really like joining hackathons and volunteering for them. I’m also in a few different clubs at UBC because I really try to get out there and improve my skills. Recently, I just got an internship at IBM!
What is the biggest difference between being a hacker and a mentor?
As a mentor, you don’t feel the rush; the adrenaline, as much. But it’s a nice change of pace. It’s somewhat slow but you still get to learn new things and meet new people. As a hacker, it’s very fun to stay up for 24 hours — in this case, 12 hours — and get something done at the end of it. But either way, it’s very rewarding. I would love to do either one in the future.
How has HackCamp been for you so far?
It’s been very fun. I met a lot of people, a lot of my friends are here, and a lot of them are doing cool projects. Some of them are doing Chrome extensions which sped up their project cycle a lot, so I might try that next time for my projects. I talked to the AgentHub founders and they’re very inspiring, that’s for sure. I like that they’re very passionate about their [product].
Do you have a piece of advice that you would give for future hackers or to yourself at your next hackathon?
Join more hackathons!
Ben
Could you introduce yourself?
I’ve been doing hackathons since 2018 — this is number 89. I work at MLH, so I usually go to two hackathons a month on behalf of them, but right now I’m here as a mentor. I work full-time at Duolingo as a software engineer, and I studied computer science and educational psychology at UT Austin. My interest in education is also why I like to go back to hackathons.
You have a long history with nwPlus — could you expand on that?
I came to nwHacks and cmd-f in 2020, right before the pandemic, as a volunteer. I remember my favourite moment was being asked to clean spoons in a shower (laughs). This is my first time back since then.
How has HackCamp 2023 been so far?
Very relaxing! The workshop hosts are really talented, and I like the structure [of the hackathon]. It’s not stressful. You get to go home, get a good night’s rest, and learn a lot — which I think is the whole point of hackathons — and you get to build something. Mentoring has been really fun so far. [The hackers] don’t seem like beginners; I was really surprised by how much they know already.
Did you have a single favourite moment from this weekend?
Just hanging out with people! The people I’ve been able to mentor have been so friendly, willing to learn, and try different approaches to their problems.
What’s a piece of advice that you would give to future hackers?
A piece of advice that I always give is to do something you’re passionate about. When it comes to the idea in particular, make sure you’re not doing it for someone else; do it for you. If you’re not going to like a project, you’ll probably quit halfway through and that’s not a good experience. So focus on your passion.
Special thanks to these participants for sharing their hackathon experiences. We love hearing from everyone involved in making HackCamp a huge success—we couldn’t do it without you!
Don’t forget to check out the other Community Spotlight from HackCamp 2023: AgentHub & Winners!
Stay tuned to hear more from the nwPlus Community 👋
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Written by Jennifer Shui, Content Writer
Edited by Victoria Lim, Marketing Director
