hackaTUM on the Garching campus
Coding competition for the most creative solutions
The official Hackathon of the TUM School of Computation, Information and Technology (CIT) took place for the eighth time last weekend. Originating from a research project, the programming competition has now developed into one of the largest of its kind in Europe. The organizing team received over 1,750 applications this year. 900 participants were selected. An enrolment at TUM is not required.
"Anyone who is enthusiastic about coding and can withstand the 36 hours can take part," Alexandra Klymenko explains with a smile. The doctoral candidate from the Chair for Software Engineering for Business Information Systems has been organizing the weekend event in her spare time for several years together with her colleagues Stephen Meisenbacher, Nektarios Machner, Tim Schopf and Juraj Vladika. Nine prestigious sponsor companies provided the challenges this year. "On Friday evening, the participants were introduced to the various tasks," explains Alexandra Klymenko. "These are real problems from everyday life." There was also a so-called "Wild Track", where participants were able to present their own tasks. In addition to the challenges, the companies also offered workshops and networking events.
Eat, code, drink, repeat
Once the teams of two to four people had been formed, it was: eat, code, drink, repeat. The schedule was tight. Very few people got to sleep in the prepared seminar rooms. The aim was not just to develop a concept over the weekend. At the end, there had to be a finished product, for example in the form of an app - including a convincing short presentation. The organizing team not only provided the necessary food and plenty of energy drinks to keep the participants going, but also on Saturday, a Music Mania quiz and PowerPoint karaoke ensured a great atmosphere and a further boost of motivation. On Sunday, the results of the challenges were evaluated by the respective sponsoring companies and two winning teams were chosen.
Overall winner from 20 top teams
In the end, the best 20 teams competed to be named the overall winner. The jury, consisting of Florian Matthes, professor for Software Engineering for Business Information Systems and Jörg Ott, professor for Connected Mobility, decided in favor of the "TreeFriends" team. Sandesh Sharma, Marcel Ganß, Nikolai Madlener and Vincent Picking had chosen the challenge of the City of Munich.
Help for threatened trees
The challenge was to find a solution that would help residents of the city during extreme weather events such as heat, storms or heavy rain. The four hackers developed an app designed to protect the green treasure of cities. "Trees in public spaces face a number of challenges in dry and hot weather, such as sealed soils and little space for roots," explains the Team "TreeFriends“. "Our app notifies residents near threatened trees so that they can water them in good time, for example." Real-time alerts guide users to specific locations and provide details on the individual needs of each tree. The app provides citizens with knowledge, promotes social engagement and thus ensures the well-being of urban green spaces.
The outstanding commitment was rewarded with great prizes and invitations to the company headquarters. For many participants, the prizes are not the main focus. "hackaTUM is not just a programming competition, but also a great opportunity to have fun and make new friends with cool people who share the same enthusiasm," says Alexandra Klymenko. For her and her co-organizers, the enormous effort involved in preparing and running the hackathon was well worth it. "We're looking forward to hackaTUM 2024 and are already developing ideas on how we can top the previous event," reveals the doctoral candidate.
Technical University of Munich
Corporate Communications Center
- Doris Herrmann / Julia Rinner
- presse@tum.de
- Teamwebsite
Contacts to this article:
Alexandra Klymenko / Nektarios Machner
Technical University of Munich
hackatum.in@tum.de
https://hack.tum.de/