Welcome to the Spring 2017 hackNY Student Hackathon! hackNY organizes once-a-semester student hackathons at which NYC startups present their technologies and students build original applications based on them. Winning teams have presented at the New York Tech Meetup. Check back here for info, signup for our newsletter or follow us @hackNY for additional details.

 

SCHEDULE

Saturday

12:00pm Doors Open to Attendees; Lunch is Served (main hallway, outside Auditorium) 

01:00pm Opening Ceremonies, & NYC and sponsor API presentations 

03:00pm Hacking Begins (see below for room list)

03:00pm Workshop 1 - "Getting started with APIs and Web Development in Python" with Sam Agnew (Auditorium)

04:00pm Workshop 2 - "Intro to Geospatial Data Analysis" with Lesley Cordero (Auditorium)

07:30pm Dinner is Served (13th Floor Lounge) 

08:30pm Ladies Storm Hackathons Meetup (Auditorium) 

11:00pm MLH Event - Werewolf! (Auditorium)

 

Sunday

12:00am Midnight Surprise (13th Floor Lounge) 

02:00am Late Night Snack (13th Floor Lounge) 

08:00am Breakfast is Served (13th Floor Lounge) 

11:00am Devpost Submissions Due! 

11:30am Lunch is Served (Main hallway, outside auditorium) 

12:00pm Demos Begin

02:30pm Judges Deliberate; Community Announcements; Winners Are Announced!

 This page will be updated as information becomes available, check back often! 

HACKATHON ROOMS 

If you will be working on an Android or iOS hack, we encourage you to work at the cortex corresponding to that technology. Cortexes are spaces for hackers working with the same technologies to work together, solve technical challenges, and debug. 

Please note that some rooms will have special events in them at different times during the hackathon and will have to be cleared during those events. Rooms with special events have been marked.

101 Open for Hacking
102 MLH Hardware Lab, and Arduino Cortex
109 Auditorium (Opening and Closing Ceremonies)
201 iOS Cortex
202 Android Cortex (closed 1-5pm Saturday for an external event)
312 Open for Hacking (This room must be cleared for Ladies Storm Hackathons meetup 8:30pm Saturday)
317 Open for Hacking
412 Open for Hacking
505 Open for Hacking
512 Nap Room (Men)
517 Nap Room (Women)
524 Open for Hacking
605 Open for Hacking
705 Open for Hacking
805 Open for Hacking
905 Open for Hacking
1302 hackNY Staff Only
13th Floor Lounge Meals and Snacks 

WORKSHOPS

Getting started with APIs and Web Development in Python with Twilio’s Sam Agnew. 3pm, Auditorium

Intro to Geospatial Data Analysis with Byte Academy’s Lesley Cordero - This workshop will cover the di erent applications of geospatial analysis and go through di erent tools in Python, including Shapely, Descartes, Gmaps & Plotly. 4pm, Auditorium

APIS 

The following NYC and sponsor APIs will be demoed at our Opening Ceremonies. Technical Ambassadors representing each API will be around or online to help if you get stuck. For help with a specific API, see its channel on Slack. You may use any API you like, 

Clarifai | #clarifai-help | @clarifai 

Clarifai provides deep learning and advanced image recognition systems for customers to detect near- duplicates and visual searches. About the API: We have an API that lets your computer see and understand images and videos. You can use our tagging endpoint to get tags for whatever photo or video you add, you can custom train your own concepts, and you can provide feedback to the machine to help it learn better.

Our API allows you to give us any image or video, and you can get information about that image or video.  developer.clarifai.com

We're building out the developer evangelism team. If you love coding, teaching and contributing to a great developer experience, email us hackers@clarifai.com

MongoDB | #mongodb-help | @MongoDB
MongoDB, Inc. is the company behind the database for giant ideas. We build MongoDB and the drivers, and sell software and services to make your life easier. By offering the best of traditional databases as well as the flexibility, scale, and performance required by today’s applications, MongoDB lets innovators deploy apps as big as they can possibly dream. From startups to enterprises, for the modern and the mission-critical, MongoDB is the database for giant ideas.

Download MongoDB here: https://www.mongodb.com/download-center?jmp=nav#community

We are hiring! We are seeking students who have a solid foundation in computer science theory, with strong competencies in data structures, algorithms, and software design. Common languages we include: C++, Go, Ruby, Python, Java, Javascript, Node.js

Twilio | #twilio-help | @Twilio 

https://www.twilio.com/docs/

JW Player | #jwplayer-help 

JW Player provides video professionals with powerful and flexible technology for reaching viewers, growing audiences, maximizing revenue, and perfecting your video strategy across all screens. The Javascript API can be used to enhance the functionality of your video embeds, or to implement rich page-level video interactions. You can find documentation for the Javascript API, as well as our Delivery and Management APIs at: https://developer.jwplayer.com/

We're hiring - Engineers of all levels: see https://www.jwplayer.com/company/careers/ for full updated list

The New York Times | @nytdevs

At the New York Times, innovation permeates every aspect of our journalism. From the use of multimedia in our long-form journalism to the mission of our technology department to look around corners, identifying, explicating and demonstrating the impending changes in media technology that will affect our readers.

See our API docs at: http://developer.nytimes.com/

 Other NYC useful startup APIs you may want to use are Foursquare and Giphy.

 

NYC OPEN DATA

The city of New York has over 1,300 open data sets available for you. You can find these athttps://nycopendata.socrata.com/. For more information about the Open Data portal APIs, you can get started here: http://dev.socrata.com/consumers/getting-started.html

If you’d like to see the full list of available datasets (as well as those that are planned to be released soon): https://nycopendata.socrata.com/dashboard

Information about the most popular datasets, keyword searches, and embeds are at: https://nycopendata.socrata.com/analytics

The City’s Tumblr with great uses and examples of Open Data in action is at: http://nycopendata.tumblr.com/

 

TECHNICAL AMBASSADORS 

Technical Ambassadors are members of the NYC tech community who visit during the hacking hours to help hackers form teams, refine ideas, work through technical challenges, and stay motivated. You can find them on Slack, and around the event. They are ready to answer your questions, debug with you, and help your hack succeed.

HARDWARE LAB

MLH's hardware lab, features Arduino, Intel Edison, Amazon Echo, Fire Phone, Leap, Muse, Oculus, Pebble, Sparkcore, Myo, and more to check out for the weekend.  You can also pick up free AWS credits to use for your hack. You can also check out extra extension cables and power strips.

  

GETTING THERE

If you're coming from Philadelphia, Princeton, or Rutgers, there is a free bus sponsored by MongoDB picking up students on Saturday morning and dropping them off Sunday afternoon. You must register via the Evenbrite link below to be given a seat on the bus.

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/hackny-spring-2017-mongodb-bus-upenn-princeton-rutgers-tickets-33108350969

Eligibility

All projects must be submitted on DevPost by Sunday 11:00 AM, April 9th. There is no team size limit, but ll team members must be enrolled in an undergraduate or graduate degree program at the time of submission.

All participants are subject to the Code of Conduct signed upon registration to the hackathon.

All team members must be enrolled in an undergraduate or graduate degree program at the time of submission.

Requirements

Participants must submit a project to be eligible to present. Presentation length will be 90 seconds and strictly enforced.

Projects must be functioning demos. Powerpoints and slides are extremely discouraged.

Hackathon Sponsors

Prizes

$1,600 in prizes

1st Place

Our top 3 winning teams will present at the New York Tech Meetup (May 9th)! These awards can be won by any kind of hack - webapps, games, hardware projects, and more. Whether your hack is entertaining or useful, we’ll be looking closely at its technical merit, creativity, and overall awesomeness.

2nd Place

Our top 3 winning teams will present at the New York Tech Meetup (May 9th)! These awards can be won by any kind of hack - webapps, games, hardware projects, and more. Whether your hack is entertaining or useful, we’ll be looking closely at its technical merit, creativity, and overall awesomeness.

3rd Place

Our top 3 winning teams will present at the New York Tech Meetup (May 9th)! These awards can be won by any kind of hack - webapps, games, hardware projects, and more. Whether your hack is entertaining or useful, we’ll be looking closely at its technical merit, creativity, and overall awesomeness.

Best Social Good Hack

Use your tech skills for good. Build something that has a positive social impact, be it a visualization that helps educate about some issue, or an app that helps solve a problem.

Most Technical

This is an award for serious technical work on hardware or software. Doing some extreme math, hardcore coding, or complex building? This award will recognize you, even if your hack isn’t the flashiest from the outside.

Best Hack Design

This award recognizes great visual design and UX. Judges will look at your user interface, graphics, and product design.

Best Hack Using a NYC API

Supporting the Tech Community is very important to us. This award goes to the best hack using local startup’s API to do something awesome. Extra points to hacks using APIs presented during opening ceremonies.

Greatest Time Saver

Best First Hack

If you’re a team of new hackers, welcome to the world of hackathons! We have a special award to recognize the best hacks by first-time hackers. We’ll look at the technical and creative impressiveness of your hack and your learning over the past 24 hours.

Best Use of MongoDB

Best Use of Twilio API

Twilio Sponsor prize! Tetris Lights

#HackHarassment

Use your tech skills for good and hack online harassment! Build a software solution that can help reduce the frequency and/or severity of online harassment. Members of the winning team receive Hack Harassment Battery Packs!

Best Domain Name from Domain.com

Domain.com Swag Bags

Amazon Web Services - Best Use of AWS

$250 AWS Credit

Devpost Achievements

Submitting to this hackathon could earn you:

How to enter

All projects must be submitted on DevPost by Sunday 11:00 AM, April 9th. There is no team size limit, but all team members must be enrolled in an undergraduate or graduate degree program at the time of submission.

Judges

Anne Bauer

Anne Bauer
Senior Data Scientist @ the New York Times

Robyn Burgess

Robyn Burgess
Conversion Director @ BounceX, Founder & Editor in Chief @ Runaway Apricot

Tracy Chou

Tracy Chou
Founding Team Member @ Project Include

Runa Sandvik

Runa Sandvik
Director of Information Security, Newsroom @ the New York Times

Jenn Schiffer

Jenn Schiffer
Community Glitch Engineer @ Fog Creek

Judging Criteria

  • Awesomeness
    That's it. No hockey sticks, no market. Just awesomeness. See each prize's description for more information!

Questions? Email the hackathon manager

Tell your friends

Hackathon sponsors

Gold Sponsors
Bronze Sponsors
In Kind
Partners

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