Wayne State students show ingenuity at 36-hour hackathon

DETROIT (Feb. 25, 2013) - Wayne State University College of Engineering student Luke Popiel and School of Business Administration student Brad Chaiken slept (minimally) under tables and downed energy drinks as they competed in the largest-ever student hackathon, MHacks, at the University of Michigan earlier this month. Though they didn't place in the top 10 of the more than 500 students competing, they were recognized by the judges for identifying and solving a problem that no one else in the competition thought to address.

	Chaiken (left) and Popiel (right and below) at the Hackathon.

Electrical and computer engineering senior Popiel and information systems management junior Chaiken developed an online social collaboration application that could be used in a situation such as MHacks to report project status, track tasks, continue with projects after the event is over, as well as to share stories and experiences.

"The inspiration came after Brad said he wanted to make a collaborative tool for developers since he himself is a developer," said Popiel. "We wanted to make it so that a developer from the U.S. and a developer from another country can be in sync when working on coding."

The team hit a few snags during the weekend, such as finding security issues with one of the technologies they had planned to use. They ran into an even bigger issue when the code package that Chaiken and Popiel were using went down.

"It took us six hours of emails and Internet relay chat to track down the developer of the program and let him know, 'Hey, we're at MHacks, the largest hackathon ever, and we are trying to win with your technology. You better fix it!'" said Chaiken. "He did. From Australia."

Chaiken and Popiel ultimately completed their app an hour under the deadline, impressive considering more than half of the teams didn't finish on time and they were one of the smallest teams in the competition. During judging, their application was well received and praised for its inventiveness.

"Most judges laughed and said how intuitive our idea was," said Chaiken. "They were surprised that no other teams caught the need for this software at the event."

Popiel added, "Most of the judges really liked the idea, especially those who have worked on coding projects. When a group is working on a coding assignment and they all are working from different places, that is when they would use a tool like the one we developed."

Motivated by their experience, Chaiken and Popiel plan to continue the development of this application and would like to see it launched as a social network for community empowerment and collaborations. Additionally, they are looking into attending a PennHacks, a hackathon that will be held at the University of Pennsylvania in March.

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Wayne State University is a premier urban research institution offering 370 academic programs through 13 schools and colleges to nearly 29,000 students. For more information about engineering at Wayne State University, visit engineering.wayne.edu.