Tag: hacktrain

HackTrain . What Week!

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OMG

What a week! It started off real bright with DevWeek (only did two days but the best two days!), and ended the week hacking away on a trainĀ hackathon! It was an immense experience, my maiden voyage to hackathohacktrainteamn and it really kicked off in style. Travelling and Hacking all in one package! OMG!

I intended to blog about this much earlier but after 42 hours without sleep, I am STILLĀ tired. No longer the young chap I was… sigh*.

TheĀ journey

We started off in digital catapult kings cross on a lovely sunny evening before heading to St. Pancras to travel on first class to Sheffield! We even got our WiFi boosted. Just to prove how small the world is, of the forty contestants I managed to meet a fellow Malaysian on the trip.

slide at electric worksIt got even better from there with a 3 floors tall slide in Electric Works! Oh of course there’s the obligatory pizzas and food .. and more food.

Ideas were pitched and teams were formed in the evening and we kicked off … well slide … sliding. Hacking can wait. LOL. There were a few really good ideas out there:

  • An indoor visualisation guide
  • Dynamically sending of information to people waiting for passengers on late trains
  • App that predicts and informs of pack coaches.

I finally ended up ganging up with the indoor visualisation guide team, and I believe it was a really good move!

I was glad we were able to catch a few hours of sleep at Jury’s Inn. It was really comfortable as that’s the last napĀ of the week for me. The next day saw us travelling to York for National Rail Museum. Our hosts were extremely accommodating, and what’s better than to code about rails, aroundĀ historical trains! Of course, more food. Generally it was a really positive effort by the team, everyone from different pulling from different directions and collaborating to slay this dragon called Darwin … whoever build their API should be shot (side note: XML .. XML!? who these days?! and SOAP?! did I accidentally travel back into the naughties?).

Then first class (again!), but with reclining first class seats. It was AWESOME! like AWESOME. I need one of those at home. The evening saw us disembark in Edinburgh, the land of the brave .. and kilts.Ā Tech Cube it was; really awesome place, except for the bank level security (what are you hiding guys?) and the secondary school feel about having to get a pass to go to the toilet :). Oh god, you don’t want to know the amount of red bull I went through…

Sunday saw us moving back to York, and we sincerely thank the York City Council for hosting us! It was very generous of you. Finals loomed and every team went into overdrive to pick all the requirement boxes. Finals back in National Rail Museum and it was a brilliant end to our awesome journey. I have to say guys, awesome apps!

https://storify.com/njharland/inside-the-hacktrain

I have to say, on the trip home I was so knocked out cold; the guys couldn’t wake me up. So! not the faint hearted.

So what did we do?

Joseph, Reeve, Ron and myself worked onĀ an app called ElasticApp. What does it do? It’s an indoor visual navigation system, telling you where you are,Ā and tell you how to get to where you want to be. ElasticApp_SnapWe had accessibility in mind when we built this app, our consumer ranging from the mainstream to the less able. I want to thank and congratulate my team for the amazing experience and the magical end product. We leverage existing low cost technology, hyperlapse, Darwin real time, backed by Dijkstra graph algorithm to build an intuitive, simple yet elegant approach to reduce your pain points.

Come have a look at our product atĀ http://elasticapp.uk/.

Thank you HackTrain organisers River, Alejandro, Kosta, Sally and co for managing to assemble a great crew, and not getting anyone lost! It was a mammoth and I couldn’t have imagined doing it. Also sponsors, without you we won’t have the unlimited flow of red bull I needed to get through… Thanks thetrainlineĀ for sending me,it was an experience I will not forget.

Lessons I learned

  • Have fun! You may be in a high temperature environment but always have fun.
  • Make friends! meet like minded people! meet different people!
  • Always be helpful, Kiasu-ness won’t bring you anywhere.
  • There are really amazing people out there, and you can really do some amazing stuff when cooked up for 48 hours together.

now .. back to hibernation…

link! http://hacktrain.com