Hacker Conventions: Pooling Vast Amounts Of Knowledge And Technical Ability
Growing up in the nineties, the term 'hacker' often brought with it a lot of negative connotations. Granted, my exposure to the world of hackers in those days was limited to ridiculous Hollywood movies; the kind of films that contained intrepid, morally compromised youths attempting to either "shut down a mainframe" or hack their way into the school's network to change their grades in an effort to avoid summer school. Ah, summer fun.
Thinking back at my woefully misguided ideas on hacking, I can't help but laugh; sure, there are plenty of people out there that use their gifts to infiltrate where they do not belong, and access information they have no business accessing, but the real power of hacking is the potential it has to contribute to the betterment of all.
Hacker Conventions: Where the Talented Collaborate
While the name may sound nefarious, hacking conventions have become all the rage in the tech industry. In truth, these gatherings of hackdom can represent a substantial benefit to society.
Take Get Your Bot On, the annual robotic hackathon hosted by the MaRS Discovery District in Toronto. The theme for 2015 was Healthy: People and Environments; which involved a refreshingly collaborative and innovative environment for participants of all ages. Among the winning innovations was team Calmstress, a team that built a robot to help prevent panic attacks by monitoring biometrics, and team Indie, who developed a rehabilitative robot for those that have suffer from a traumatic disorder.
Ingenious as they are, what's arguably more impressive is that teams have just a 36 hour window to conceive, plan, design, and build a functioning robot that could not only impress judges in their functionality, but also satisfy five different criteria. Each robot had to:
• Move (in some capacity).
• Incorporate a microcontroller or microprocessor.
• Be able to receive information from its environment.
• Be demonstrated on the last day of the convention.
• Tie into the hackathon's theme of 'Health'.
While the convention did award prizes, the real reward comes from being handed a basic kit full of PCBs (printed circuit boards) and other components and building something that not only interacts with its environment in some way, but is designed to improve the quality of life of someone who may be suffering from a chronic illness.
Organizers of the event like the idea of getting people to collaborate towards a common goal in a particular sector like health care. Not only is it a noble pursuit, it also opens the mind to the potential that robotics has to in a wide range of industries.
Hackathon's provide a veritable melting pot of techies from all walks of life. It's interesting to think of all the connections being made, the ideas being shared, and the enduring partnerships that are being forged. Cons like Get Your Bot On represent a fun weekend for robot enthusiasts of all ages; and it may prove to be a jumping off point to enrolling in an online technology course or better yet, a career as a robotics technician.
Hack the North
Hack the North is Canada's largest hackathon and like Get Your Bot On, is more about encouraging collaboration between brilliant minds that are out to change the world. The most recent Hack the North featured over 1,000 students from across the globe, taking over the University of Waterloo campus for a 36 hour, energy drink-fueled programming binge. Among the incredible innovations on display this year was a wearable device named Wayst, which vibrates a warning to cyclists when they get too close to other objects.
Also on display were teams who were able to take Uber and Facebook APIs and show the two titans of industry new ways of using their products in ways never before considered. For Uber, an app named Happy Hour was developed that used Uber's API and a Pebble smartwatch that helps the wearer track how many alcoholic beverages they've consumed.
The tech sector is one of limitless possibilities – these conventions, if nothing else, do show us that. But while there is ample of opportunity to create the kinds of things that will change our world, hackathons may one day contribute in ways that have yet to be considered; like colonizing the solar system, or creating microcomputers so efficient they have no need for EMI testing.
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