[Empire Strikes Hack] Java the Hutt — Green Time + Sustainability Awareness
A short while ago, across multiple locations (in a galaxy quite similar to our own), 24 international teams competed in an intergalactic battle for supremacy. It was hackathon week.
Taking part in a hackathon is both exhilarating and intimidating. Coming up with the idea, working as a team and producing a working prototype (and presentation!) all within 48 hours is a big ask of any software house. Intimidating, because you may not know the members of your team or even where on earth to start!
For our Empire Strikes Hack event, brilliantly hosted by our Dark Emperor/Jedi Master himself David Lindley, we were given 3 distinct pillars on which to base our idea — Sustainability, Customer Experience and Communities.
Teams were randomly assigned a few weeks prior to the event based on our individually chosen pillar (I chose sustainability). A bit of prep-work, fact finding and discussion was allowed (but no code or presentation prep!) and before you knew it (faster than the Millennium falcon making the Kessel Run) it was show-time.
Preparation is key…
Our team, Team 3 of 24 (a.k.a Java the Hutt) had a few preliminary ideas that were unfortunately fact-found out of existence the day before. This meant our first few hours of our first day revolved around last-minute bright ideas. Not the most ideal preparation, but sometimes genius works best under pressure.
After a few hours of discussion we settled on our idea of “GreenTime”. Which in an elevator pitch would sound something like:
“GreenTime — know when to plug-in, or un-plug your devices based on the live carbon emissions being produced from power generated, at that moment in time, in your area.”
By using the free-to-use national grid carbon intensity API, we were able to formulate a plan based off of this premise.
Jamie (being an experienced hackathon-er) was designated lead for our team and did an excellent job of constantly reminding us that we needed to “de-scope” rather than “add more stuff in” as we blasted ideas at him.
Eventually we decided to base our entire idea around the key theme of “awareness” — notifying the users of our GreenTime service about the Co2 emissions issue. All done with a helpful, friendly forecast of the days estimated carbon intensity metric.
The next step was target audience. With the mantra of “start-small think-big” we decided upon using our existing Vodafone UK workforce and office locations as the starting block for these notifications.
With the idea taking shape in our minds, we split ourselves into mini-teams. The Coders, The Architects, The Researchers and the Powerpoint guy (me).
And they’re off!
A whole lot of action seemed to happen at once, our coders and architects (Roel, Jamie, Franklyn, Sven, Harry C) got to work shaping out the functional aspects of our idea. Where it will run, how it’ll be triggered, and in what shape the notifications will be sent out.
Our researchers, Joe & Elliot, started looking into Co2 emissions within the office (and home office) environment. How it’s measured and what we can compare it against to make it impactful for the audience.
I started looking for interesting Star Wars GIFs that might jazz-up our slides.
With the advancements in battery and power-reducing technology, it seemed the facts our researchers were pulling weren’t as eye-opening as once thought. However, we reminded ourselves that, although one persons Co2 footprint wasn’t altogether shocking, a small reduction across each individual within a large organisation like Vodafone would make a huge difference.
Our coders and architects had made great headway into the problem, and the solution was within our grasp. By the end of day 1 we had a rough, yet working prototype — aimed at our two key communications platforms used in Vodafone (MS Teams / Slack). We left the office on day 1 feeling like we’d accomplished an awful lot in a very small amount of time.
Day 2
Day 2 brought with it an expectant hum of adrenaline, today we’d be one of 24 teams showcasing our project to a Jedi Council of hand-picked judges. We’d have to live-demo the software, pitch the idea and explain the concept through a presentation. All while being well prepared for any questions the council or audience threw at us.
As there were so many teams, the judging was split into preliminaries across the UK and internationally. If you scored the highest points in the preliminary, you’d have the opportunity to present again to a wider and much harsher Jedi Council (with perhaps a few Sith thrown in) in the grand final.
With the code almost complete (few styling adjustments as always), I set about trying to palm off the presentation on anyone looking my way. Unfortunately my “Jedi mind tricks” aren’t what they used to be, and so I volunteered to do at least half of the presentation. Roel kindly and boldly stepped up to take the other half.
The final morning was practice, practice, practice. Make sure our talking points are accurate and any questions can be addressed (thank you research!). Make sure our live demo works correctly and flawlessly. And most importantly, make sure our timings are spot-on (7 minutes!).
The preliminaries
With everyone clued up on the presentation (I did a bit of work — honest!), we were ready to enter our preliminaries.
At this point I must stress, EVERY TEAM was awesome. The ideas, the creativity — everything was as you’d hope and expect from a hackathon. It really was a pleasure to be sat in the audience, witnessing the amazing things these teams had come up with in less than 2 days.
When it was the turn of Java the Hutt (us), I’m proud to say we stepped up and smashed it out of the galaxy.
I set the scene, the scenario and the problem. Our live demo was so smooth it was like a lightsaber through butter. Roel finished the presentation with aplomb, pointing to the future uses of our application.
Then the judging happened. We were through! To our collective shock and amazement, our little idea had borne fruit. Now all we had to do was do it again!
The Grand Final
The grand final was even more nerve-wracking than the preliminaries. Whereas before each team had a small (ish) audience and a reduced judging panel in their group stage, now all presentations were to be broadcast live, around the world to an audience of hundreds!
During the grand final we got to see the presentations from each of the winning areas. These were presentations the teams in our small group stage hadn’t seen yet, and it was a joy to behold.
When it was our time to present, we stepped up and smashed it out of the galaxy once more. Perhaps even better than the first time. We’d made a few small tweaks in the interim and it just seemed to flow better, like a landspeeder through the dunes of Tatooine.
Win or lose, we’d given a good account of ourselves, “team work makes the dream work” they say, and we’d shown ourselves to be a damn good team.
In the end there can be only one winner, and sadly it wasn’t us. We did finish in 2nd place however, and in my opinion, silver shines brighter than gold. To be honest, the overall winners were 100% deserved and were also my picks for the star prize.
Finally, I just wanted to say this was a bigger and better follow-up to our Hack to the Future event, and that a great time was had by all. I’ll definitely be back for the next — how about a golf themed Caddy-Hack anyone? (anyone?)
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