Blazers host overnight hackathon for local high school students

From 6:30 p.m. on Friday, March 15, to 9 p.m. on Saturday, members of the Blair Engineers' Guild hosted BlairHacks, a student-organized overnight hackathon for high school students. The event provided free food, drinks, hardware and swag for participants and was open to students with any level of coding experience.

BlairHacks was founded two years ago by alumni from the class of 2018. This year, the four student organizers were sophomores Anika Dasgupta, Rajit Mukhopadhyay, Ethan Oh and Sujay Swain. The competition is intended to encourage students to view computer science from a more practical perspective. "For anybody who might not find computer science interesting, or doesn't like how it's taught in schools, this is a different way you can look at it," Swain said.

BlairHacks March 2019

Photo: BlairHacks is entirely planned and run by students

BlairHacks is entirely planned and run by students Photo courtesy of Tran Pham.

At the hackathon, students had 24 hours to plan, develop and present their novel ideas. Past projects include a biometric system, an easy way of implementing browser extensions and an original app. The hackathon also taught students to work in a team environment, problem-solve and get things done in a time crunch.

For students with no previous coding experience, BlairHacks ran workshops throughout the event to teach attendees how to use tools, such as Python, Raspberry Pi or Arduino. Professional and students mentors were also available to help students. The winners of the hackathon received prizes such as bluetooth headphones and one-year subscriptions to Wolfram|Alpha Pro.