Illinois wins Major League Hacking fall season

2/16/2015 Ashish Valentine, ECE ILLINOIS

The Illini Hackers won first place in Major League Hacking's Fall North America season.

Written by Ashish Valentine, ECE ILLINOIS

The Illini Hackers, Illinois’ team of students interested in building and hacking technology, came in first place in Major League Hacking's Fall North America season. The collection of major university hackathons took place throughout the United States, Canada, and Mexico, at places like Purdue, MIT, and Georgia Tech. 
 
According to Major League Hacking, the season scored universities based both on how many of their members attend each event, and also on how many top-placed hacks each team earns. Illinois performed excellently in both metrics. 
The Illini Hackers.

Image courtesy of Major League Hacking's website.
The Illini Hackers. Image courtesy of Major League Hacking's website.
 
“Illini Hackers are frequently sending dozens of hackers to events around the continent. This alone put them in the top five schools for participation,” the Major League Hacking website said of Illinois. “However, (Illinois) also wins, a lot. (The team) collected the most merit points of any school in the season...If you see hackers from (Illinois) around an event, say ‘hi,’ congratulate them and really, get to know them, they’re a great crew.”
 
Electrical engineering major and team member Aswin Sivaraman explained that the team’s talented membership has been bolstered because of the Hack Nights it hosts at Siebel Center. Once or twice a month, the team hosts these nights, where anyone from any year or major can tinker for three or four hours. 
 
“We always have free food and it’s just a nice place to hang out,” Sivaraman said. “Some people come for the food and leave or do homework, but we always get a few new people that have really cool ideas they want to work on. These nights have really helped build up our team because people that didn’t know about us before are always joining, building things, and competing at hackathons with us.” 
Computer engineering student Sunny Pruthi and CS alumna Mo Kudeki at a Hack Night.

Image courtesy of the Illini Hackers.
Computer engineering student Sunny Pruthi and CS alumna Mo Kudeki at a Hack Night. Image courtesy of the Illini Hackers.
 
Computer engineering major Milan Dasgupta won best use of the Twilio API at Purdue’s BoilerMake for a Rasberry Pi remote locking device that could scan an iCard, then run its identification number by an administrator’s phone app, which then can block or allow entry. Dasgupta emphasized that one of the major reasons that Illinois won its last season was the team’s blend of hardware and software proficient members, allowing the team to execute complex hardware hacks in addition to building apps and other software. 
 
Dasgupta mentioned that hardware projects are usually more challenging to put together within the timeframe at hackathons because they rely on getting both code and physical parts to work. Illinois’ ability to have a strong computer engineering presence at events allowed them to integrate the best of both hardware and software skillsets. 
Major League Hacking's Fall rankings.
Major League Hacking's Fall rankings.
 
“Lots of universities had great software hacks, but what really set us apart last season was how many people we sent that had either great computer science or great ECE know-how, and our ability to fuse those skillsets together to make very technically impressive hacks,” Dasgupta said. “We’ll usually get four to six ECE majors from Illinois at hackathons. Software-only hacks are impressive, but there’s nothing quite like giving a demo of a glove-guided drone flying through the air, or using a phone app to tell your wi-fi microwave to heat up a meal.”
 
The team will be hosting its own famous annual hackathon, HackIllinois, Feb. 27 to March 1 in both the ECE Building and at Siebel Center.  

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This story was published February 16, 2015.