{"id":26375,"date":"2018-10-08T16:00:47","date_gmt":"2018-10-08T21:00:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/?p=26375"},"modified":"2018-10-08T15:24:52","modified_gmt":"2018-10-08T20:24:52","slug":"apsu-students-earn-best-hack-awards-at-volhacks-hackathon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/2018\/10\/08\/apsu-students-earn-best-hack-awards-at-volhacks-hackathon\/","title":{"rendered":"APSU students earn best hack awards at VolHacks hackathon"},"content":{"rendered":"

Austin Peay State University (APSU)<\/h2>\n

\"AustinClarksville, TN<\/strong> – Imagine getting an alert on your phone or smart speaker whenever your letter carrier delivers the mail. Or you might want to know if your neighbor is nosing through your mailbox \u2026 again. Pi-Mail, created by Austin Peay State University (APSU) students in the Association of Computer Machinery (ACM), can help.<\/p>\n

\"Austin<\/a>

Austin Peay State University ACM members who attended VolHacks were, top row, from left, Daniel Blankenship, Zack Toupe, Aidan Murphy, Parth Patel, Peyton VanHook, William Kersten and Harrison Welch, and bottom row, from left, Chris Tuncap, Bryan Bishop, Thomas Bau, Robyn Yates, Lexie Nance.<\/p><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

And the judges at September 28th-30th\u2019s VolHacks hackathon at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, thought ACM\u2019s project was so innovative, they awarded the students \u201cMost Technical Hack\u201d and \u201cMost Market Ready Hack.\u201d<\/p>\n

The mailbox hack wasn\u2019t the only ACM win at the competition. The team also won \u201cBest Social Good Hack\u201d and the \u201cBest Social Good Hack from Fidelity Weekly Challenge\u201d with its Bunkerin\u2019 Down, which helps victims find immediate shelter during a natural disaster.<\/p>\n

\u201cRecruiters were all over us at the end (of the hackathon) because we won so many awards,\u201d Harrison Welch, ACM president and APSU senior, said.<\/p>\n

What Is Volhacks?<\/h3>\n

More than 300 students from colleges across the country attend VolHacks each year, competing for more than $25,000 in prizes and the attention of event sponsors such as Asurion, Elo, Cisco, SAIC and Google.<\/p>\n

\"Austin<\/a>VolHacks describes the competition this way: \u201cDuring 36 caffeine-filled, sleepless hours, students from the University of Tennessee and elsewhere will brainstorm, build, break, test and deploy whatever they can imagine, for the chance to win amazing prizes.\u201d<\/p>\n

This was Harrison\u2019s first hackathon, and only two of his teammates have ever attended a hackathon. The College of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics sponsored the team by supplying APSU-emblazoned shirts.<\/p>\n

Harrison stayed up all night Saturday working on the projects, and his teammates got only 3 or 4 hours of sleep before submitting the entries to the judges Sunday morning.<\/p>\n

The team is planning two other hackathons this semester, Hack GT October 19th-21st at Georgia Tech and VandyHacks November 2nd-4th at Vanderbilt.<\/p>\n

Winning With Pi-Mail<\/h3>\n

\u201cOur Pi-Mail takes pictures from the inside of the mailbox when the door is opened while posting pictures to a website and giving Alexa the skill to update you on the last time you received mail,\u201d the team described the hack to the judges.<\/p>\n

[320right]The team ran into a challenge, though; the motion sensor didn\u2019t work.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had to think of a different way of detecting motion and after research found that we could use change in pixels from the camera (to detect motion).\u201d<\/p>\n

The team received gigabyte mechanical keyboards and a da Vinci mini wireless 3D printer for winning the category.<\/p>\n

You can learn more about Pi-Mail here (https:\/\/devpost.com\/software\/pi-mail<\/a>). You can try out Pi-Mail here (https:\/\/s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com\/www.pi-mail.com\/success.html<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Winning With Bunkerin’ Down<\/h3>\n

\u201cBunkerin\u2019 Down allows users to review locations near them on a number of attributes that contribute to safety during an emergency, such as the state of maintenance of buildings, elevation, access to basic needs such as food and accessibility to the public,\u201d the team described the project. \u201cWhen searching for a location, these attributes are used to calculate a score specific to the type of threat the user is seeking shelter from.\u201d<\/p>\n

This project challenged the team because it lacked experience with the \u201cuse of Google Cloud services with Docker and Cloud SQL.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAlthough we faced some difficulties in our initial approaches, we continued to work at them and were determined to eventually reach some conclusion,\u201d the team reported to judges.<\/p>\n

The team received a giant Jenga set and $50.00 gift cards for winning the category.<\/p>\n

You can learn more about Bunkerin\u2019 Down here (https:\/\/devpost.com\/software\/bunkerin-down<\/a>).<\/p>\n

ACM also created a rhythm game they named Leap Beats Unplugged using Leap Motion, using the motion tracker so the user could play to the beat of a song. You can learn more about the project here (https:\/\/devpost.com\/software\/leaps-beats-unplugged<\/a>) and try it out here (https:\/\/github.com\/zacktoupe\/Leap-Beats<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Lessons Learned<\/h3>\n

Even though the team performed well at its first hackathon, Welch said he noticed experienced teams attended the hackathon prepared for the challenges.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe learned some lessons about planning it before we do it, because that\u2019s basically how everyone else did theirs,\u201d he said. \u201cThey studied up on the material, and they executed it during the hackathon.\u201d<\/p>\n

[320left]The Austin Peay State University team will be prepared for the next competition.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll come up with a plan prior, come up with a project and study up on the materials we\u2019re going to use,\u201d Welch said. \u201cWe\u2019ll look at the sponsors, because the sponsors have specific challenges that say, \u2018Hey, if you want a job here, this is a challenge you can do and prove to us that you\u2019re awesome.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

To Learn More<\/h3>\n