Spokane Hackathon
The Spokane chapter of the Computer Science Teachers Association (CTSA) in conjunction with ESD 101 hosted a 24-hour hackathon on March 3-4 at Fellow Coworking in Spokane.
The Hagan Foundation graciously awarded $6,000 to fund the Hackathon. Fellow Coworking donated the space and students showed up at 4:00 p.m. on March 3rd to register. 38 students attended the event, representing seven different high schools and two middle schools. Students pitched an idea about a game they wanted to create at the event and joined the group with the most alluring project. The eight different teams started on their project at 6:00 p.m. on Friday and worked on their projects through the night until 1:00 p.m. on Saturday. Each team then presented their project to the rest of the group.
Seventeen Whitworth Computer Science students donated their time to help the groups work through issues that came up. They also led the 4:00 a.m. dance with everyone! Groups presented their project to the whole group at the end of the hackathon and students were then asked to vote on which project was given 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place.
First place was awarded to: Jacob Tart, Andrew Jenkins, Kiersten Gasper, Ben Riddle.
This event was a tremendous success and next year's event is already being planned. Based on the feedback received, next year's event is expected to grow a lot, as all attendees from this year said they would return.
Other sponsors for this event included: DigiPen, Test Out, Whitworth University, CyberPatriot, Code.org, ESD 101, Fellow Coworking, and Dutch Bros.
