HackuWeather: Weather Innovation in a Connected World
By Adam Lacombe
Sunday night marked the end of 48 hours of hacking innovation at the TribalScale office. Alongside our friends at AccuWeather, we hosted dozens of developers who were ready to change the way we interact with weather. HackuWeather was an initiative focused on leveraging connected devices, alongside the AccuWeather APIs to create new weather-related experiences.
Friday night was an inception night. Many teams took the opportunity to whiteboard solutions and test their hypotheses. As the sun came up Saturday morning, all teams went into full development mode. Over the course of the 48 hour hackathon, our participants hacked everything from Myos and Nod Rings to Raspberry Pis and Weather Shields. We couldn’t have anticipated the breadth of solutions that would emerge from the weekend of innovation.
All the teams that came out for the weekend did an outstanding job of creating breakthrough solutions. For this post, I’ll be focusing on our four finalist teams.
M50
Using the AccuWeather API, M50 created a social platform for friends to coordinate activities based on the current weather in any given city, or part of the city. The solution featured weather forecasts, activity suggestions, map integration, and an integrated chat functionality to allow users to coordinate with their friends.
Coat Check
An Alexa Skill, used to fill your virtual closet with potential outfits. Simply ask Alexa, “What should I wear today?” Using data from the AccuWeather API, Alexa associates the weather conditions with the predetermined clothing in your closet to give you outfit suggestions.
Tempus
Tempus was our runner up team. The Tempus solution integrates both Google Maps and the AccuWeather APIs to create a road trip planning companion, allowing users to check the weather at specific times/locations throughout their drive. The team created a web app as well as a companion mobile app to track weather updates en route.
Feels
Team Feels was the grand-prize winner for the weekend. Composed of two Ryerson University students, the team developed a web app to change the ambiance/mood of your home based on the weather. The solution pulled weather data from the AccuWeather API that associated with moods like upbeat and chill, which would in turn control various aspects of the home environment. For chill, the app would control music through 8tracks, selecting a “chill” playlist. Integrating with your in-home Philips Hue light bulbs, the lighting would automatically adjust to reflect the weather. If they were given more time to work on the solution, the team would integrate with the Amazon Echo to create a Voice User Interface, controlling the app through speech.
The hackathon was an amazing display of the innovation that can emerge from a short 48 hour development sprint. The dedication of Designers, Developers, and product folks never ceases to amaze us here at TribalScale. There are few industries out there that consistently carve out entire weekends to work on improving their craft. It comes as no surprise that the technology industry is constantly innovating at the hands of brilliant, young, and hungry techies. Hope to see you all at our next hackaton!
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