Lost in Hack-lation

Lost in

Tanglin’s annual Hackathon was more than just a coding competition, it was also the perfect opportunity for Tanglin’s students to demonstrate their creativity and problem solving skills. We speak with the student organisers and winners to find out more.

Hack-lation

At Tanglin, students are often given opportunities to express themselves and demonstrate their knowledge. “Lost in Hacklation” is one such student-led event where 70 students from Years 7 to 12 were challenged to come up with innovative ideas to use technology to overcome modern communication issues.

A LIFE-CHANGING EVENT

The third event of its kind at Tanglin, the Hackathon takes place annually and is usually organised by Year 13 students. In fact, the earlier hackathons were what inspired Year 13 students Andy, Sophie, Rechardt and Finn to try their hand at organising it.

Sophie said: “I remember participating in the first event called ‘Ready Set Hack’ and the following year’s ‘Hack to the Future’. After winning last year’s Hackathon, I was really inspired to run the event with my friends so when Ms Boersma from Computing told us about running it at the end of Year 12, we were excited and ready to start planning.

IMPROVING COMMUNICATION

Planning the event was no mean feat, especially in view of COVID restrictions, but the team was determined not to let the pandemic influence their plans. In fact, they decided to stay away from COVIDrelated topics and focus on subjects that would engage their participants. They brainstormed ideas such as space, exploration, and environmental issues before settling on ‘Communication’. Finn explained their decision: “With the abundance of problems surrounding

L to R: Andy, Finn, Sophie, Rechardt

L to R: Aarav, Ervin, Ishaan

communication, it would not be too difficult for our younger participants to formulate a solution and the resulting products would be interesting. We were right!”

GOING ONLINE

Although the event eventually had to pivot online due to stricter COVID-19 regulations, the student organisers were undaunted and moved ahead with their plans—albeit with a few changes. Andy said: “We were given a choice to cancel or do the event online. We had been working on this since May and had lined up all the guest speakers so it would have been a shame for it to go to waste. We decided to make the transition online using Microsoft Teams; we just had to make sure the participants were aware that it was online and that they still wanted to attend.”

Finn chipped in: “I was really surprised at the quality of projects the students produced. I thought having to do the event online would diminish the complexity of the code produced but it was the opposite. This year has easily produced the most impressive set of products we have seen so far in the Hackathons!”

THE HACKSTERS

One such product was the sign language translation app called “Easy Talk”. It was created by The Hacksters, a group formed by Year 7’s Ervin, Aarav and Ishaan. According to the team, the app’s purpose was to close the communication gap between people who use verbal communication and those who use sign language.

Ervin explained: “The app has two sections; one has common English phrases and when you tap on one of them, it will show you the sign language version of the phrase. In the other section, tapping on an image of the sign language will show you its equivalent English phrase.”

What was the inspiration behind their app? Ishaan said: “We believe that everyone should have a voice no matter what disability they have, that’s why we came up with an app that could give ‘voice’ to those who couldn’t speak.”

Keith Rutherford, who was one of the judges, was excited by the app’s potential. “The concept of the app is brilliant; you can tell the team put a lot of thought into it. I think it’s worth exploring in greater detail because it’s such a unique social idea,” he said.

” “ The concept of the app is brilliant; you can tell the team put a lot of thought into it.

THE VISION

In the Senior category, The Vision - a team comprising Year 11s Krishnav, Liam and Noel - was the winner for its innovative take on simplifying MOH’s COVID-19 phase advisories. Knowing that they could be complex due to different regulations, the team came up with an app that displays relevant COVID-19 regulations for a family based on their vaccination statuses. Krishnav explained: “By entering the relevant information, our users can see the activity they can do on a dashboard. We believe this makes it easier for families to understand the different regulations.”

Since the team had come up with a creative solution for a common communication issue, they won the challenge. Finn and Sophie said: “We chose them because their proposed solution was viable and well explained.”

Although the organisers were worried that hosting the event online would diminish the participants’ excitement, they were pleasantly surprised to see everyone fully engaged. Rechardt said: “Hopping into each break-out room call and hearing the students argue over ideas, and shout out with glee when they finally fixed that one programming problem helped to show that this excitement was still around, and that just seemed to make me smile.” ■