A look back at the annual Computer Science Hackathon

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Amid a whirlwind of caffeine and code, computer science and engineering students spent the night in the Student Center, working together at the annual Hackathon, Nov. 17.

Students were given a prompt and required to work together in teams of three to accomplish the task. “In short we were trying to program a robot to hang onto monkey bars in a particular order,” said senior and Computer Science Honor Society president Sankalp Singh. “They would give us an order – for example: yellow, pink and green – and then the robot would have to swing to the yellow bar, pull itself up, release then go to pink.” 

Students arrived around 5 p.m. Friday night and stayed until 8 a.m. Saturday morning to complete their assignments, dedicating hours to their crafts. In the end, while no team managed to complete the task fully, they did get close.

Juniors Victor Jafet, Michael Wang and Daniel Heit’s robot almost made it to the end of the monkey bars before it collapsed on the last rung. (Photo and Video/Marissa Behar)

Students of all grades from both the Computer Science Honor Society and the Engineering Society were invited to attend the Hackathon. They were divided into teams of three before setting off to program. (Photos/Sankalp Singh)

Irene, now a senior at American Heritage, returns to staff as the Online-Editor-in-Chief for her third and final year with the Patriot Post. She loves all things literature and spends most of her time with her nose in a book. Her passion for writing started early, and she is currently the co-president of the Quill and Scroll Society. When she is not studying or writing articles for the wonderful iPatriotPost, she enjoys volunteering and helping lead a multitude of clubs at Heritage. Since 2014, she has worked alongside Best Buddies, an organization that advocates for inclusivity for those with intellectual and physical disabilities. As a co-founder and current board member of the South Florida Best Buddies Student Advisory Board, she plans fundraisers and service projects, including the annual Friendship Walk, which raised almost $300,000. She looks forward to making this year special and as amazing as possible.