BY BAILEY OPRAMOLLA
On February 19, the Society of Women Engineers and Girls Who Code hosted the first Hackathon. The event gave students the opportunity to use their creative skills in addition to their coding skills.
“The event was both a Hackathon and Ideathon,” said Anya Kaul. “The motive was to encourage both non coder and coders to join and get a feel of the completion and show [their] abilities,” said Anya Kaul. This format made it possible for all students to participate whether they knew how to code or not.
Students had the privilege of being able to pick which section of the event they wanted to participate in. “We were able to pick which part we wanted to do,” said Caitlin Florio.
“There were groups, pairs, and people working alone for both categories,” said Kaul. Participants could work with their friends if they wanted to and enjoy some snacks.
The Ideathon asked students to put their creativity to work. “The Ideathon was a more innovative approach for students who are more interested in creative thinking and designing,” said Angelina Shrestha. “Their goal was to produce and present an app that informed the audience about water sustainability.”
Attendees made the most of the chance to use creative problem-solving skills. “I enjoyed being able to really think about the best way to approach the situation and then having to draw out an app idea but including the drawbacks,” said Kaul.
Experienced code writers mostly chose the hackathon activity. “The Hackathon was a competition to enhance your computer science abilities and consisted of coding problems that needed to be solved,” said Shrestha. “The team with the most solved problems won a prize.”
Speed, coding skill, and a competitive nature helped students in this event. “We got a set of problems, and we had to race to see who could code a solution to all of them fastest,” said Elizabeth Tchia.
Overall, the Hackathon successfully let students have fun while also using their skills.
Posted on 4/30/25
Photos provided by Sarah Wallace
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