30 Hrs at McDonald's HQ

Wednesday, October 30, 2019

Posted by Tushar Nitave, Dept. of Computer Science, Illinois Tech, Chicago

Want to feel exhausted, excited, motivated and do you want to code at a stretch for more than 20 hours? There can't be any place better than attending hackathon! Full of university students, exciting challenges and prizes it's a must go for computer science enthusiats. Dare Mighty Things hackathons was hosted at McDonald's amazing HQ in Chicago on 26th and 27th Oct 2019. More than 350 computer science students from 49 schools over 42 cities participated, which made this really challenging. Day on 26th started with great kick-off by various sponsors.

Developers at work

After hackathon kick off we were ready to be wired in (for my non cs folks) and turn our idea into reality. Approximately at around 12:30 p.m. we started working on idea. Within the next 24 hrs we were supposed to make working demo of our idea which can be presented to sponsors. Our strategy was to leverage each other's strengths and work on the project collaboratively. Perplexed, motivated, high on caffeine we were stuck in the loop of develop-test-commit-push.

You must be thinking how can you code on an empty stomach! Of course innovation doesn’t happen on an empty stomach. We were served with unlimited pizzas, energy drinks, sodas etc after all we were at McDonald's HQ. As the time passed we were reaching towards our goal. We ran multiple tests trying to improve our product. Finally, at around 10:00 a.m. the next morning we tested our product for the final time and we were ready to present our product.

Nervous, tired yet excited we were waiting for judges to arrive at our hub. Judging panel included people from Google, Shure, Ulta, Grainger, JLL and others. Finally, wait was over and we were ready to present our 24 hr work in 3 mins. Everything went well and Judges were really impressed by our presentation. Now, as we all do after exams, we were waiting for the results.

Results

Among these many talented and experienced coders around us, we were not hoping anything. But, it was our day. We came 5th among 70 groups that participated. Top 5 groups were requested to show demo in front of everyone.

Wait...it's not over yet

After reading all this, you must be wondering what was our product? Well, there is nothing to hide. We developed a personalized chat-bot using Amazon Alexa which can suggest you restaurants near you in Chicago. It was a simple idea but very effective for people who are new to this place.

Thanks for reading. If you like our idea and want to collaborate or have any questions/suggestions, fell free to drop an email or contact via other mediums.