Just like geese heading north in the summer, we joined the flock and made our way to Hack the North for a non-stop, 32-hour hackathon. Picture this: 1,000 students from everywhere, diving into events, workshops, games, and all sorts of cool stuff. It was what I'd deem "the unofficial music festival of hackathons."
The challenge for attendees was simple: Make something amazing. And did they deliver! We've put together the best bits for you to check out and get inspired in the process.
Entering Hack the North
As a sponsor of Hack the North, we hosted a category within the competition—Best Use of Viam—giving students the opportunity to win special prizes and see the versatility of our software. They could use the platform for hardware configuration, software engineering, or a combination of both for our category.
To introduce them to the software, our team gave an API workshop titled "How to Bring Your Robotic Projects to Life," which taught hackathon participants how to leverage the Viam platform to make their machines smarter.
Through this demo, we:
- Introduced "Tipsy," our mobile rover, trained in computer vision and machine learning for autonomous navigation.
- Created a fun, Pac-Man-inspired demo with team members in unique shirts, triggering Tipsy's chase or escape.
- Demonstrated Viam’s machine learning essentials, teaching students to train their models within the app.
- Showcased how to tailor Computer Vision detections through coding and configuration.
- Conducted a live coding session exploring our SDKs and real-time robot configuration.
- Highlighted the Viam app's seamless functionality, impressing students with its user-friendly interface.
The aftermath? Students and teams were inspired to use our platform to accelerate their projects—building smart machines faster within the hackathons short timeline.
With over 30 inquiries for Viam Rover development kits, six lucky groups were allowed to prototype using our rovers to help them realize their hackathon goals. See some of the highlights below.
Seeing the projects come to life
Use the Force… or just one of our SDK’s
Imagine using your thoughts to control a car—could that just be a Jedi mind trick? Or is it simply just the magic of open source integrations?
Spyder, aptly named after the toy car Audi the group reimagined, uses the Viam Golang SDK and uses the Neurosity Crown to take the brainwaves of an individual, train an AI model to detect and identify certain brainwave patterns, and output them as a recognizable output to humans.
The team collected brain electrical impulses, and forwarded those commands to the Viam interface to control the steering of the car. It makes you wonder, “could this be the future of autonomous vehicles?”
Dive deeper into this project through their Devpost and source code.
Another set of eyes for teachers in classrooms
Meet Rezbot: your classroom's intelligent ally streamlining daily tasks for teachers. From taking attendance to monitoring engagement, it keeps a finger on the pulse of every student's presence and participation, transforming the way educators prepare lessons and assessments.
Rezbot is a web application that uses Computer Vision to identify students and automate the process of attendance. It can simulate dashboards for teachers to view statistics on certain students' classroom habits.
This group used our Flutter SDK to create a web app where teachers can access a live camera stream from their Viam robot and collect image data using Computer Vision to feed data into these dashboards.
For more information on Rezbot, head to the team’s Devpost.
Robotic paparazzi for our star hackers
Next up on our roster of awesome projects that use Viam, Pic Perfect is the friendly robot companion here to replace that friend who always takes the worst Instagram photos.
Using a facial detection model, this smart machine tracks your every move, adjusting the robot to the ideal angle and distance so the subject is perfectly centered in the frame. With a simple thumbs-up gesture, it takes your photos and applies filters to produce perfectly crafted portraits which are then shown on a web app.
To build this smart machine, the group leveraged Viam’s Python SDK and used a Viam Rover as the base.
Discover more about this build through the team’s Devpost.
Awarding the winners of our category
As the weekend drew to a close, students took to the stage, showcasing their dedication and innovation during this intense hackathon.
Viam proudly presented the award for the "Best Use of Viam." The winners, each receiving a fully equipped Viam Rover complete with a Raspberry Pi, a LIDAR, and an assortment of hardware, demonstrated exceptional skill and creativity.
We honored two victors in our category: "Spyder," for its ingenious application of open-source technologies in tandem with Viam, and "Pic-Perfect," for skillfully integrating machine learning models into their rover prototype and developing a fully functional front end for their robotics project.
Reflecting on the event
Thinking about the weekend, one thing became crystal clear: Viam’s platform, with its vast language support and flexibility, is an enabler of creativity.
Many students were surprised at how many languages we support, and the fact that projects were submitted utilizing different SDK’s is proof of just that. It showed that it doesn’t matter what type of engineer you are: there’s something for everyone on the Viam platform.
So, what's the takeaway for you? Like the students at the hackathon, embrace the challenge of a timeline and try to build a fully functional project in just a weekend—utilizing Viam to help of course. Dive into our tutorials and documentation to get started today.
