Second fall Hackathon boasts big turnout

Tufts' second fall hackathon, PolyHack, brought over 200 participants to 196 Boston Ave. on Friday evening. The 24-hour event was organized by seniorsSam Purcell, James Downer and Brendan Conron and sophomoreTom Wang.

One of the primary goals of the hackathon is the building of applications, but the event is also intended to teach participants new skills and encourage them to pursue projects that they would not undertake in their everyday schedules, according to Purcell. 

“The goal is two-fold: it’s learning and creation,” he said. “[Participants] collaborate and they become better at understanding and solving problems.”

According to Purcell, all 180 tickets were claimed within the first 16 hours, but the organizers urged anyone who was interested to attend.

Purcell added that the coordinators wanted to attract all members of the Tufts community to the hackathon, including underclassmen and students who felt they had less to offer on the technical side. The name PolyHack stemmed from his belief that Tufts students have a unique position at the intersection of different fields, including computer science, international relations, arts and music.

“It brings out the different expertise and different ideas that people have,” Downer explained.

According to Downer, the organizers this year also held Bitcoin raffles and challenges throughout the night. He added that, compared to last fall, there were more than twice as many project submissions at the end of the event.

Downer said that PolyHack focused on a more social route by collaborating with Tufts 180 Degrees Consulting, a student consulting group.

Benjamin Berman, president of 180 Degrees Consulting, explained that his team had never before been focused on the building of technology and had instead only offered support for the implementation of new technology or advice on future outcomes.

“We saw an interesting avenue for us to give increased value to our clients through innovation and technology,” Berman, a senior, said, adding that two of the projects at PolyHack were directed specifically at two of their clients’ high-technology needs in the near future.

Sophomore Janae Hoyle said that she and her partner worked on improving the website of an event space for community arts in Somerville. She added that she spent the majority of the hackathon teaching her partner about web development as well as learning new things in the process.

"Overall, the hackathon was a great experience," Hoyle said, adding that there were plenty of workshops where hackathon attendees could learn new technologies such as HTML, CSS and iOS development.

Slater Victoroff, a junior at Olin College of Engineering as well as co-founder and co-CEO of Indico, one of PolyHack’smajor sponsors, also held a workshop on entrepreneurship.

“We care very deeply about giving back to the hackathon community,” he said, adding that he first met his co-founder at a hackathon.

According to Victoroff, hackathons are more effective spaces for innovation than other corporate environments in Boston.

Purcell explained that companies get a list of participants, including their resumes and the projects they worked on during the hackathon, which would help recruiters filter applicants more effectively.

“What we give them is a way to figure out which candidates are good and which candidates are passionate right off the bat, so it’s kind of a win-win for everyone,” he said. “The kids learn, and the sponsors get talented people -- and there are a lot of incredibly talented people at Tufts.”

Some of the projects that were developed at PolyHack included an application that displays nutritional information for dining hall food while tracking calories, an object-oriented concurrent programming language and a Google Chrome extension for Wikipedia that allows users to view summaries of a linked page by hovering over the links.

Tyler Lubeck, a senior who participated in the hackathon, worked with his team to create Darwin Course Ratings, which provides customized course ratings by matching student reviews of classes with personality models built from users’ Facebook statuses.

Purcell explained that the computer science department has traditionally been focused on teaching theory, but the hackathon is able to leverage more real-world applications of the classroom learning.

“[Lecturer of Computer Science Ming Chow] really got the movement going at Tufts for applied computer science,” he said. “We want to keep this [movement] away from pure theory to applied theory because we think that we can attract a lot more top-quality people using that paradigm.”

The hackathon, as a student initiative, reflects the growing interest in computer science, Downer said. He said it also actively supplements classes and provides an outlet for the creative spirit around campus.

“There’s not enough institutional support for the computer science department here,” he said. Despite recent improvements like the renovation of Halligan Hall, more effort such as hiring new professors and adding new buildings is needed, according to Downer and Purcell, to meet the growing demand.