GrizzHacks 6 is Oakland University’s sixth school-wide hackathon, held at the Engineering Center throughout Mar. 9 and Mar. 10. With the competition being held for the first time since Sept. 18, 2020, GrizzHacks had plenty to offer students.
The main attraction of the event was the 24-hour engineering marathon where teams created projects from the ground up and then presented their work to a selection of judges to compete for a variety of prizes. Jacob Souro, the GrizzHacks vice president, explains that the sponsors are the judges for the event and why it is fulfilling for the students participating.
“A lot of our sponsors have a sponsor track, so at the end of this event, when they [participants] get judged, they’re gonna be judged by sponsors,” Souro said. “Whisker, for example, they’re gonna be judging their own AI/ML track.”
Throughout the event, many GrizzHacks sponsors held Tech Talks and workshops on a variety of different topics such as Little Caesars’ Navigating your IT path, and Oakland University Credit Union’s Clean Code.
Amelio Mansour, the GrizzHacks treasurer, felt support from other parts of OU besides the Engineering Center and the sponsors. Other partners from the event included OU clubs such as Cyber OU holding a Tech Talk, the Gaming Guild and Chess Club collaborating for a board game night during the event and the Super Smash Club hosting a room for students to play ‘Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.’
“GrizzHacks isn’t just engineering people, but it was like the whole school kind of came together,” Mansour said. “We also had a lot of the School of Engineering faculty and staff here as well, participating and volunteering.”
Amidst the fun and knowledgeable events occurring throughout the hackathon, the participants were still hard at work, creating their projects. Ashley Chin, an information technology student, and Agron Gojcaj, a computer science student, worked as a team for the competition. Chin explains her main reason for participating in the hackathon.
“I just wanted to experience what a hackathon is because I’ve done projects on my own, but not under a time limit,” Chin said. “The whole experience is what a programmer should experience in college.”
From making new connections, learning new tips and getting extra hands-on experience, GrizzHacks was rewarding to many of the students. Gojcaj explains what the most fulfilling aspects of the event were.
“For me, probably meeting new people,” Gojcaj said. “Also getting work done and learning new things that will pay off later.”
With 131 participating students, spread across several different universities, the GrizzHacks coordinators were pleased to see that their extra time and effort in making the hackathon’s grand return did not go to waste. Mansour explains how it felt to help coordinate the event’s return.
“As a coordinator, it is very rewarding to see all of our months of planning and your work,” Mansour said. “It was just four of us, and we decided we should relaunch back up. We started recruiting people, and then our team grew to 11 coordinators. It’s kind of nice getting it all together.”
For more information on GrizzHacks, please visit their website at grizzhacks.org.
