Hackathon, a programming competition put on for 36 hours straight to build, share, and learn creations! California State University Stanislaus, (Stan State) took 1st place for Best App; Snapshop, at UC Merced’s Annual event!
Anthony Cantellano (Junior, Computer Science) spoke about the one of the opportunities this event gave him.
“Hackathons give the opportunity to meet really great people and since you are on a team with these people, you are dependant on one another for 36 hours and somehow it just forms a really great bond!” Cantellano said.
Snapshop can be used at home or on the go. The way it works is by taking a photo of the product you want to sell, upload it on the app Snapshot, and include the title and description of the product! When the user uploads a photo, the Application Program Interface (API) automatically adds relevant tags that would fit the item the user is listing.
Snapshop is created by five Stan State students; Anthony Cantellano (junior,Computer Science), Gonzalo Lazalde (senior,Computer Science), Gerardo Gallegos (senior/Computer Science), Mario Muniz (Stan Alumni), and Samuel Ruiz (senior/Computer Science). They were awarded a metal, drone, and RC car that is programmable for coming in first place against students from UC Berkeley, UC Davis, Monterey Bay, San Francisco and more.
According to Snapshops website, “Snapshop is the first fully-fledged web application that the majority of this team have ever developed to such complete and usable state. Specifically we’re proud of having developed a REST API and overcoming the challenges that come with that”.
Aside from Snapshop, PictoCrypt was created and introduced at the Hackathon as well by two of Stan State’s Computer Science Club members, James Sweeten and Paul Santos.
PictoCrypt is able to encrypt and decrypt messages! The app they created also encrypted text files and made them into using a passphrase given by the user, the same passphrase was then used by the recipient of the images to convert those files back into text, compressing data as well!
Hackathon took place on September 29 through October 1st. According to Hack Merced’s website, “ A hackathon is best described as an invention marathon….where contestants will team up, learn code, design and pitch cool and creative projects that you always wanted to try out!”
Hackathons are a great opportunity for computer science students to gain practical hands on skills working in a team environment and meeting strict deadlines to build an application!
Update: Story was updated to change the headline to clarify that students from Stan State majoring in Computer Science were the ones who won Hackathon, not the Computer Science Club.
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From left to right Sam Ruiz, Anthony Cantellano, Gonzalo Lazalde, Gerardo Gallegos. The beginning of the Hackathon and everyone was setting up their development environments and getting ready to plan their project out.
(Photo courtesy of Mario Muniz )
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Sam Ruiz (left) and Mario Muniz(right) receiving their medals for taking 1st place for Best App.
(Photo courtesy of Anthony Cantellanos)..
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James Sweeten (left) and Paul Santos (right) presenting their project in front of 3 judges and over 60+ programmers in the audience.
(Photo courtesy of Anthony Cantellano).
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Left to Right, Sam Ruiz, UC Merced Student Helper, UC Merced Student Helper, Anthony Cantellano, Gerardo Gallegos and MLH Helper (Major League Hacking)Few team members taking a picture with a few volunteers from the event.
(Photo courtesy of Anthony Cantellano.)
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