#lahacks

[gkimbwala]

Very excited to see all the projects at #LAHacks ! Looking forward to speaking on the diversity panel at 5:00. Added bound for constantly getting mistaken for a college student! (at Pauley Pavilion)

[masherydev]

1400 Devs Journeyed to UCLA for LA Hacks Collegiate Hackathon

LA Hacks returned to UCLA last weekend.  1400 developers from the UC and Cal Poly universities, nearby state and city colleges, and out of state schools made the journey to Pauly Pavilion and competed in this 36-hour collegiate hackathon.  Intel’s Steven Xing and I attended this event and provided Intel developer support.

LA Hacks’ organizer Varadh Jain kicked off opening ceremonies followed by an inspirational speech by singer Aloe Blacc.

I presented the Best Use of Intel Technology challenge using Intel Edison and or Intel XDK and or the Mashery API Network.  The prize for this challenge: up to (3) Beats Studio headphones.  

Participants visited our booth eager to learn about and build with our Intel technologies.

First time XDK users wasted no time in building their mobile applications in just minutes.

I visited a team that explored the Mashery API Network and used the FoodEssentials API to enhance their food management app.

It was great to see XDK users from previous hackathons now challenging themselves to learn and use Edison.

"Really Cool Ground Drone” remote controlled car app equipped with a camera won the Best Use of Intel Technology prize.  This Cal Poly Pomona/UCLA team used the Edison to enable bluetooth control with their mobile device.  In addition, users can activate this drone to gather video and data information.

“Sprinkle” used the Edison and won the Best Civic Hack prize for their app designed to save water. This smart sprinkler waters plants at the best suitable time as instructed by the Edison.

“Sketchless” used the Jambase API from the Mashery API Network and won the Best Use of the HeyWatch API. This music app allows users to select their favorite songs performed by a collaboration of artists.

I want to thank Varadh Jain for organizing another huge 1400 developer attended hackathon.

I also want to thank the LA Hacks mentors and volunteers for their support to attendees.

Lastly, thanks goes to the participating developers for making the journey to LA Hacks, displaying their app development talents, and challenging themselves to build awesome apps.

[canipark]

LAHacks and DigitalOcean

CANiPARK wins first place for the #DIgitalOcean contest at #LAHacks!

Here's the announcement, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19jiwjT2dko&feature=share&t=42m59s

[jezhou]

This weekend, I went to the "largest hackathon in history," held at the ever prestigious University of California, Los Angeles. I'm going to talk about everything that happened in this post ^.^

The Project: I basically worked with my friend Lucy to create a "social media website for food porn," and only after did I realize how fucking hard it was to make a social media website out of scratch, with absolutely no experience at all. Lucy and I kept on trying to brainstorm what to make, and since we were both interested in food, this seemed to be the most unique idea since it would generate a lot of unique "food porn" for the internet to see. But it kind of fell flat at the end, although we did our best to learn what we could.

The weapon of choice was Django, which is a web framework made from Python, and with me having no real Python experience, coding what we had was a pain. I had to at least watch 15 YouTube tutorials on how to install and use Django, and even now, we still only have sign ups as the only real functionality of our website. Well, that and a small piece of js that generates random ingredients. Go figure. 

But the front end wasn't actually not that bad. We used BootStrap by Twitter to basically style every single page generated by the Django framework, and in the end, it started kind of coming together. We didn't end up finishing the hack, so Lucy and I decided to just work on it outside of class when we could. 

Other parts: This is the second real hackathon that I've gone to, and I have to admit that it was a great deal of fun even though I only had one other person on my team. It was really interesting and awesome to see companies like Robinhood, SnapChat, Tinder, Microsoft, and etcetera endorsing their products and letting us use their APIs (which to those of you who don't know are basically pieces of code that allow you to use a company's service) for free, although my team didn't really take that opportunity. 

It was also great seeing old friends, some who I haven't seen since the end of high school. Not a lot has changed, to be honest, and it's great that we were able to come back together and hang out like old times (although I was really never part of this clique in the first place, but they're friendly so it didn't really matter to be honest). 

Last but not least, visiting my girlfriend was probably the only non-hacking highlight of my trip. I'm glad that I'm able to visit her amidst all the coding stuff I have to do, and I'm glad she tolerates my nerdiness (even I think it's over the top sometimes). We spent saturday night just talking about everything and anything, I love it when I can do that with someone I love and trust. This is getting a little cheesy so I'm gonna stop LOL

Anyway, it was an all encompassing weekend filled with junk food, coding, old friends, and freebies. Gonna try to attend more hackathons now, especially the big ones.