Open Sauce Hackathon 2013

Last year I attended the inaugural School of Computer Science & Informatics “Open Sauce” Hackathon as a participant. It was a hugely successful event, and good fun to work with Mark and Chris in building Motion Kitty Pi, a prototype Spotify home music streaming service for Raspberry Pi (with motion-triggered playback!). Not only was the event a success, it was superbly organised by undergraduates in the School of Computer Science & Informatics’s Computer Club. Click here for a report on last year’s event.

Now being a lecturer and co-runner of the Computer Club I get to assist the undergraduates in organising this year’s Hackathon, and it’s shaping up to be even better than last year’s! They’ve done an excellent job of organising and promoting the event, with over 40 attendees already registered. Among these are undergraduate students from Cardiff University and other institutions, PhD students, staff members, and local professionals.

As with last year the School is supporting the event with facilities and a contribution to the prize fund. What makes this year even more impressive is the amount of external sponsorship the students have secured. Box UK are very kindly providing the ever-important food and (energy) drinks for the two-day event, and a total £500-worth of prizes are being contributed from Linode, DigiStump, and eysys. On top of that, John Greenaway (Cardiff University Information Services), Richard Gaywood, Stuart Allen (Cardiff University School of CS&I), and  Humphrey Sheil (eysys) will be on-hand to judge the final projects.

So: free food, free drink, big prizes, and, importantly, building something cool with friends. What more could you want in an event? Get more information or sign up if you haven’t! And well done to Joe, Henry, Geraint, James, and all the organisers!