Ishinomaki Hackathon 2017
Audience Prize/ Magical Gadgets Prize
I joined Ishinomaki Hackathon in July 2017. The theme of the
hackathon was “magical gadgets”.
When I saw the theme, I interpreted “magical” as “prank” and came up
with an idea of building an app we can use to scribble on the
“space” we are in. Actually, this idea of scribbling on space came
to my mind eight years ago, when iPhone 3G was released. At that
time, I wanted to create an app using location tracking so I created
an app to color the road I walked on with. I told my co-worker how
fun it would be if we could actually scribble on space as if we were
drawing on walls with spray cans. Back then I didn’t create an
scribbling app because I thought recognizing walls would be
difficult. However, now, with the latest technologies, I thought the
app could be made.
A friend of mine owned Tango - an android phone with space
recognition. I rent his Tango a week before the hackathon. I just
started learning Unity a month ago but when I ran sample app on
Tango, it recognized a wall and plotted dots. I thought this could
work so I joined the hackathon with this idea.
Actually, I have never joined hackathons before. I hurt my back
doing yoga couple years ago and was afraid of sitting on an
uncomfortable chair for a long time without getting enough sleep.
For me hackathons were horrifying event. However, my back got better
so I decided to join this hackathon.
When I arrived Ishinomaki, I was a bit anxious since it was my first
hackathon and I had no idea how hackathons work. Ishinomaki
Hackathon begins with an idea pitch. Participants with ideas share
their idea with other participants. Participants can work on their
own projects or join the team with ideas they are interested in.
After my pitch, three people joined my team. The youngest member of
our team was in grade 11. I got a team with diverse members.
On the first day, after assigning tasks to members, we discussed how
we can handle the most difficult part of the project, drawing on the
wall. On the second day, we started building the app. Each member
worked on their task they are assigned to and our app was almost
done by the afternoon. I think separating work into smaller tasks
and assigning to each member functioned really well. One of out team
members who had the most experience in Unity ( he was a university
student!) worked hard to get the drawing part of the app - the
hardest part of the app done. We put all the functions each of us
worked on together and finished building the app at around 21:00.
With the app we just created, the world we tried to create was
there. - We had this feelings of scribbling.
We had a pitch on the third day. The accuracy of Tango’s space
recognition depends on the brightness of the room. So we were
worried if our demo works as expected but our demo went well. We got
“Magical Gadgets Prize”, the prize given to a team that built an app
that best matches the theme, and “Audience Prize”, the prize given
to a team which got the most votes from audience. We were very happy
to get those prizes, especially the audience prize.
