In school you typically learn new things, do projects about them, get marked, and nothing else comes out of it. It doesn’t turn into anything. All that work gets put into a binder or Dropbox folder you will one day forget about completely.
But during UofT Hacks, a hackathon held at the University of Toronto, more than 480 students from high schools, colleges, and universities across Ontario gathered from Jan. 30 to Feb. 1 to flex their hacking skills – and to prove some of their ideas can become businesses in themselves, not just projects to be graded and then swiftly forgotten.
With student-focused hackathons, you can put real life and school skills to the test. Plus, you get to play with toys (aka technology) that you may not normally get to, like Intel Edison Boards, Grove Sensors, Thalmic Myo Armbands, Pebble, Sparkcore, Leap Motion, Arduino Boards, Breadboards, Oculus Rifts, and Square Devices.
Proving that ideas can change the world and be used for social benefits like dealing with dementia, promoting fitness and improving safety, here’s what you missed at #UofTHacks:
Things you only see in a sci-fi movie. In this case, a smart security robot:
A Million Volts is an Edison-based home security robot that you can control remotely @UofTHacks #HackItShipIt https://t.co/MuAwJDwfw1
— Intel Canada (@intelcanada) February 1, 2015
Gamifying IRL things. Like turning your morning run into a Pac-Man adventure:
Speed run gamifies running by using a smartwatch app to guide you to orbs around the city #WearableTech @UofTHacks pic.twitter.com/j0bZNc244S — We Are Wearables (@WeAreWearables) February 1, 2015
Using wearables as an interactive way to help dementia patients and their caregivers:
.@Pebble hack win is an app that tracks dementia over time by asking questions daily #WearableTech @UofTHacks pic.twitter.com/S3JjronjeH — We Are Wearables (@WeAreWearables) February 1, 2015
Building the idea you’ve been daydreaming about, like using your smartphone to make perfect toast:
Come make toast through SMS at Table 95! #UofTHacks #hackitshipit #toastmeon pic.twitter.com/zm5SqxFHLP — Alexander Yang Shi (@alexanderyshi) February 1, 2015
Embracing your inner Da Vinci:
The Nav Hat is definitely one of the more interesting @UofTHacks submissions that incorporates the Edison #… https://t.co/kIbQVTRu6z — Intel Canada (@intelcanada) February 1, 2015
A little old fashioned Tesla and Edison-esque rivalry:
Some fierce University of Waterloo vs. U of Toronto competition going on at #UofTHacks before final presentations. pic.twitter.com/EVdQU8dGuI — Pearl Chen (@PearlChen) February 1, 2015
Throwing project framework and expectations out the window. A student-run event for students = success:
Congrats to #UofT #UofTCompSci student organizers of @UofTHacks! Amazing #teamwork by 450+ (exhausted) students. pic.twitter.com/NdXy67hpjQ — U of T CompSci (@uoft_cs) February 1, 2015
You can see all the hacks here on HackerLeague.org and all the winners listed on this recent post by the Toronto Star.