24 Hours of Innovation: Our Journey at HackMIT 2022

HackMIT 2022 is the first formal hackathon I've ever attended, and the overall experience is pretty amazing. But I can tell the organizers for this this year's event are not too experienced probably because it's the first in-person event since the COVID started.

Late August. Lounging on my IKEA minimalist masterpiece, a Discord call with Luciano (opens in a new tab) shattered the calm. HackMIT 2022, he said. Our fingers had been itching for a challenge, beyond the usual coding competitions. With a rush of adrenaline, I hopped to my desk and whipped up a half-decent application. The stage was set.

First night in Boston, MA

Fast forward a few weeks, the gods of HackMIT smiled on us, except for Leo (opens in a new tab) who got waitlisted. Not deterred, Luciano (opens in a new tab), Mike (opens in a new tab), Angela (opens in a new tab) and I boarded our flight to Boston.

The Opening, HackMIT 2022

What followed was 24 hours of magic. Our team, replete with energy and ideas, set forth to build 'Sentik' - a tool to mine and analyze tweets for user-given inputs. Ticker symbols or keywords, you name it, Sentik can gauge it. With a snazzy Golang backend and Next.js frontend, our application aimed to offer real-time sentiments and insights, charted and tabled for easy consumption.

Our team, Angela (opens in a new tab), Luciano (opens in a new tab), Mike (opens in a new tab), and me.

About 21 hours into the project, wrapping up

Sure, the event had its hiccups. Some teams seemed to have taken the sprint out of this hackathon, with suspiciously dated Github commits. We missed the memo on the time machine, it seems!

But let's not let a few speedsters overshadow an amazing 24 hours. Buzzing with enthusiasm, the halls of HackMIT 2022 were alive with fresh ideas, crisp code, and riveting innovation. And while we didn't clinch the top spot, the experience left us richer, filled with new ideas, cool swag, and fantastic memories.

HackMIT 2022 was an unforgettable roller-coaster ride. It was about thinking on our feet, solving problems in real-time, and above all, learning and having fun. Now, we're looking forward to more hackathons, more learning, and of course, more fun.

Visit Sentik (opens in a new tab) to see our baby in action. Or explore its DNA on GitHub (opens in a new tab).

Sentik

Until next time, keep hacking!

P.S. Thanks, ChatGPT ;)