NASA?

 

SPACE?

 

APPS?

 

OMG three names of things which I am far away but one term which I love -

 

HACKATHON

 

When I first heard about NASA SPACE APPS Challenges, I could never think of being a part even leave alone being an organizer. But as I have told to 100s of people, Tripti Singhal Somani, she encouraged me to take it to Bihar.

We accepted the challenge and decided to organize events in our Bihar but as soon as we started, COVID 19 pandemic hit the country and all the plans crashed. But with continued support from Sai from Sumvn, we finally planned for an event on 12th September but you know, the number of registrations was absolute ZERO. Surprised? Our team was also surprised, we had approached around 150+ prospective students but the result was nil.

 

We got to investigate and found two reasons - the Pricing (although very nominal but somehow didn't loom to the students' community) and then the duration ( 24 hours - simply impossible to sit beside the laptop)

 

We got another free Webinar by Arjit Hajra from Think Again Labs ( one of the organizers of Space Apps Challenge India). His session was full of energy and support and information about the event. This time our efforts paid off - we were able to get 30 registrations from different colleges - RN college, Darbhanga Engineering College, IIIT Bhagalpur, Chandigarh University, BMD college.

 

The session started at 2 pm on 20th September amid lots of confusion with 30 teammates and Sai from Sumvn. The rules were explained and projects assigned but still, confusion was in the air.

 

The elevator pitch started on WhatsApp Video Call in teams at 4 pm. We encouraged them for better performance and also guide them towards better projects. Some teams now seemed to be more confident about the hackathon.

 

The first round of mentoring sessions started at 7 PM with a surprise guest "Anurag Verma", the lead of GDG Patna. He encouraged the participants to give their best. Also, he promised to organize more of such kind of events through GDG Patna too.

 

The first round of scrutinization started at 10 pm along with the mentoring session. We had an amazing mentor - Husain who did guide the participants in detail over the technical aspects of the challenges. It was a detailed session that gave the teams full confidence and a pathway for success.

 

 

The real challenge started after this scrutinization as too much work was there but midnight meant sleepiness to the participants. But this turned out to be one of the best sessions as we organized a fun and engaging session with a quiz and get to know each other. Some dares were also given to the participants. The whole fun was in WhatsApp Group with above 1000+ messages in 2 hours by 30 participants.

 

They were working in the background on their amazing challenges.I got them another challenge at 5 am in the morning to get out of the chair/room and explore the beautiful and calm nature in the morning. The challenge was to shoot a 30 seconds video of nature along with their voice. We received really beautiful videos of the calm morning with chirps of birds.

 

 

 

The second round of scrutinization starts at 8 am with another big surprise as we had an international guest this time Ahmaz Mustafa from Cairo in Africa. He not only challenged their ideas but also gave mentoring on finalizing their applications. At the end of 2 hours long zoom session he gave tips on how to win the Hackathon.

 

The teams got to work and give their best performance in the final session. The session started at 12.30 with tips on "How to give the Best Performance?" The team was called to present the application they had built. 

 

The first team to present was "Twinkling Stars" on the amazing thought "How to minimize the Gap 

 

The Second team came with another amazing Idea "Doctoral - For a healthier society". They performed really well. We wished them all the best for future endeavors.

 

The third team to present was "Bihari Creators" on "Apna Kisan". An application of data and services to help the Farmers direct to the consumers/buyers without any middleman. The idea was very appreciated by the Jury members.

 

The "Freaky Four " came with "The Sky beyond Clouds - The satellites". They made an educative web-application for the students and other learners to know about the Artificial Satellites in an easy and fun way. Their application can be found here.

"Blue Birds" came with a desktop application to learn about Space and NASA through an interactive Quiz.

 

Team Six presented a solution to control forest fires "Spot the Fire".

 

Team "Rocket Booster" plan to build an Android App for Learning Space Science in a more effective and fun way.

 

 

 

 

Team Eight presented Rakshak2.0 - An innovative approach to detect and inform about a little spark in the forest.

 

After all the performances, we had our mentor - Tripti Singhal Somani. She enforced the technological advancement achieved amid Covid-19 which could have taken another decade to reach the common man. She also announced to set up a Women Empowerment(WE) cell at different colleges of Bihar in the upcoming months.

 

The session concluded by the distribution of participation certificates to everyone and announcement of winning teams - "Freaky Four", "Blue Birds" and "Rakshak 2.0".

Yeah, we couldn't believe it - it was 26 hours and no-tiredness. The session was amazing and now into our memories. 

 

Thanks to everyone who made it a huge success. 

Keep learning, keep Smiling!