USU hosts annual Hackathon

Utah State University hosted the annual 24-hour HackUSU coding competition in the Huntsman Hall from March 1-2. Students began constructing their projects on Friday afternoon and turned them in for judging Saturday evening. 

Throughout the day and night, students were able to attend workshops on a variety of topics, including how to get a dream job, UX design, coding principles and software development. Sponsors were present for students to network with.  

The event kicked off with a talk from USU President Elizabeth Cantwell, who facilitated an open discussion between students and encouraged them to practice working in a team.  

HackUSU had several categories for students to compete in, including cybersecurity, game development, AI and machine learning and hardware.  

Kayli Clegg, a junior studying data analytics, was on the organizer team for HackUSU.  

“They were looking for students to be on the team and I was like, ‘I’m in, I want to help organize,” Clegg said. “We’ve been working on this since the summer. Some of the sponsors are sponsoring specific categories of the competition.” 

Clegg said the competition even brought in students from other schools. 

“It’s such a mix of people here,” Clegg said. “We have a ton of business students, students in data analytics, we have engineering students, and we also have students from BYU-I and from U of U.”  

Clegg said the decision to have Cantwell speak at the event was due to her background in the subject.  

“President Cantwell was our keynote speaker, and she was phenomenal,” Clegg said. “She has a background in data and coding.”   

Ella Wilhelmsen, a sophomore majoring in data analytics, volunteered for HackUSU.  

“I wanted to be involved in this competition because it’s a great opportunity to network both with professors and fellow students,” Wilhelmsen said. “I randomly took the intro course for data analytics and I just loved it so much, I’m a TA for the course now.”  

Wyatt Williams, a junior studying for a master’s in data analytics, competed in the machine learning category.  

“My goal is to create an image classification app that’ll have facial recognition,” Williams said. “The app will take a picture of me and then sort through files to recognize whether or not it’s a match.”  

Hannah Hart, a public relations major, presented an idea in the business solutions category.  

“It’s glasses for people with visual impairments,” Hart said. “I’d do it with Bluetooth so they can drive and hear where they are going.”   

The first place title for cybersecurity was given to the team HoneyHack for their cyberdefense model. They designed software to mimic malware and recognize it in a computer.  

Team DJET came in first place for hardware. They built a contraption to disperse signals.  

A team of BYU-I students, Gone Fishin’, won first place for AI and machine learning.  

There were prizes given for first, second and third place winners. Students chose from cash prizes, TVs, printers, vacuums and backpacks.