Winners.

Vector Calc Sandbox

This project featured in 2019’s Bitcamp challenges, and the developers walked away as having won in the best data visualization hack to solve a real-world problem, owing to the ingenuity of their design. The designers sourced their inspiration from their love of math as well as the need to fill the gap that exists in pedagogical tools used in teaching calculus-3 material in college. Through the app, students can visualize the concepts that they have seen in school, which allows them to develop strong geometric and physical intuition, which is a much-needed skill in society.

The developers in this project were Ajeet Gary, Matt Grabber, John Ball, and Veronika Polushina.

OSCAR

OSCAR is an acronym for obnoxious scheme to convince all to recycle, and it won in the most entertaining hack bit of the competition. The theme behind the development was to encourage people to dispose of their trash in the correct bins. Where a user throws waste in the right bin, a pleasant voice-over plays. Where one gets the bin wrong, they receive a scolding. The developers behind this project are Eliana Krakovsky, Nate Rogers, Johan Vandegriff, and Emily Sann.

MadLads

This project won in the best first-time hack category. It is what you could expect of MadLibs only that in this case, you would also get to enjoy image recognition. In MadLibs, you fill out some blanks to come up with a custom story. In this scenario, you take a picture which the system recognizes before adding five words to come up with a story. The result is often funny, and users can keep trying the different choices for other outcomes. Amanda Yeh is one of the developers of this project, alongside Scolecite.

Billiard Boi

It is not easy for AI to learn pool as it is a game that features strategic search spaces as well as chaotic outcomes. Thus, Mikhali Khrenov and Shriyash Upadhyay had their work cut out for them, and they managed to emerge victorious, thus bagging the win under the Best Hardware Hack category. The robot can hit marbles using a cue on the table and given that the developers came up with this design using two tools, their work is quite impressive.

My Bitfolio

Many people have great ideas, but they have a hard time selling their products in the market as they face challenges in coming up with attractive apps. This project’s developer, Fiona Cohen, who is a coding designer, worked on helping people improve the user experience in their apps as well as coming up with appealing visuals, among other things. She walked away, having won the best bitfolio title in the competition.

I AM GREAT

Bitcamp is all about coming up with solutions for problems that most people face in their day-to-day activities, which is something that this project tackled. Often, people feel that they do not have what it takes to get what they want, for example, a promotion. They thus settle for less when they can get more. Another example would be where if someone were to ask you, how great do you think you are on a scale of 1-10? Many people opt for eight which is the safe solution, but this project is all about getting you to the point where you feel great about yourself and can confidently answer that you are a ten without coming off as arrogant. This project won as the best hack for fostering continuous education. Developers behind the idea were Stephanie Murphy, Courtney Revada and Michael Busby.

Sunrise: The path to a bright future

Lack of patient compliance is one of the biggest challenges facing psychiatric treatment, and this project aims at reducing the high non-compliance percentages that are characteristic of this medical field. The app enables doctors to be in the know of what is going on in their patient’s minds by going through analyses of social media texts. They can thus tell where a patient is doing well or otherwise, ensuring that mitigation measures take place long before the situation gets worse. This project won the best hack for mental health, with Jerry Peng and Vinay Veluvolu making up a part of the development team.

EyeBank

This project won under the best financial hack category. It enables the visually impaired to have independence regarding their finances by guiding them through steps such as money deposits and withdrawals through the use of speech. The developers behind this idea are Steve Sahayadarlin, Ryan Hossain, Alexandro Fuentelzas, and Deval Parikh.

These are but some of the fantastic projects showcased in 2019. There are tons of categories in which you could participate. Sign up today and get to be part of the winning teams!