The University of Connecticut’s annual hackathon competition, HackUConn, ran from Friday, Feb. 27 to Saturday, Feb. 28 at the Peter J. Werth Residence Tower.
HackUConn began in 2016 and encourages students from any educational background to develop ideas and solutions that address a specific problem or prompt. This year, the hackathon, hosted by the Werth Institute for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, tasked students with exploring what “Living with AI” means. Thousands of dollars in scholarship prizes were awarded to the winning teams.
On Friday, students who did not already have a team were grouped together by the event organizers. Eighteen teams, each with two to five students, registered in total.
At 5 p.m. on Friday, teams were allowed to begin their work and had 17 hours to come up with an idea, explore it and present it the next day. Each team’s project fit under one of three categories: education and AI literacy, creativityor work.
Dinner on Friday and breakfast on Saturday were provided to the teams, with snacks offered between the meals as well.
At 10 a.m. on Saturday, teams stopped their work and the presentation portion of the event began. A panel of judges consisting of UConn faculty, some of whom were involved with the Werth Institute, evaluated the teams as they gave six-minute presentations. If teams finished with enough time remaining, the judges asked the teams questions about their presentation.
There were a variety of ideas presented at HackUConn in different stages of development and that used AI in unique ways. One team presented their concept of an educational stock market game, where AI could educate users about trading stocks in an engaging way. Another team thought of an AI program that could identify objects with a camera and inform the user how to safely recycle their materials, which featured a video demonstration of the AI’s detection capabilities.
While coding played a large role in many projects, which often featured small, functional websites, there were other skills on display too. Teams put emphasis on the business side of their designs, which had specific target audiences in mind, improved upon what current potential competitors offered and fit within potential legal regulations. Transparency about AI usage and potential ethical concerns were reoccurring inclusions as well.
The first-place team in each event category was awarded $1,250, and each team member could receive up to $250. Prizes were awarded to the second and third-place teams in each category as well.
The team “Educating the Youth” won first place in the education and AI literacy track with their idea “TA AI.” The team of four, who were randomly placed together and never met before the event, came up with an AI that could integrate with HuskyCT directly to help UConn students stay organized and assist their work without giving away answers.
“I was surprised [we won] cause there was a lot of good ideas up there,” Shane Nicholson, a fourth-semester transfer student majoring in computer science, said. “Probably our strongest point was following, maybe more closely than most of the other groups, the rubric that they provided.”
Despite meeting for the first time at the event, Jeferson Encarnacion, a second-semester digital media and design major, said the team worked together well.
“We all kind of knew our roles, too,” Encarnacion said. “Everyone knew what they were here for and everyone executed properly.”
On the creativity track, the team “Husky AI” won with their idea “Made By Me.” They outlined an AI program that would add an invisible watermark to social media content that would prevent other AI models from learning from or manipulating the content. The team had a functional outline of their idea that they included in their presentation.
For the work track, the team “Nine2Five Squad” with their project called “Nine2Five.” The team put together an AI tool for medium-sized business to optimally distribute what tasks should be done by humans, what should be done by AI and what should be a hybrid of both.
An additional award of $500, up to $100 per member, was offered to the team that earned the most votes through crowd voting. The award went to the team “SLON,” who also won third place for the work track. The team of three stayed up most of the night working on their project, getting a total of one hour of sleep between all the members.
Team “SLON” came up with a handheld device, which they 3D-printed a model for, that could record audio for questions or translations and output an AI response through a speaker.
Ruslan Gamzaev, a sixth-semester computer science major, showcased the translation capabilities by speaking Russian, Turkish and Japanese, which drew laughs from the audience.
“It was fun, entertaining,” Gamzaev said. “Even if we wouldn’t have [won] anything, what a good opportunity it was for the next project. Now we know the idea might be actually good, we might do something with it, try to kickstart it maybe.”
Much of the staff that ran HackUConn consisted of UConn students.
Anshul Rastogi, a sixth-semester computer science and molecular and cell biology major, worked with the tech team and helped coordinate the Discord that teams used during the event.
“It’s a fun time,” Rastogi said. “I was a competitor last year actually, and it was a really fun experience being a competitor. I wanted to see what the other side would be like.”
Information about future events hosted by the Werth Institute for Entrepreneurship and Innovation can be found on their website.