Make or Break, an event supported by ScaleUp Porto via its Open Call, is over and we want to share the results with you. For 3 days, about 120 people worked in 15 projects during this hackathon that participants kindly call “tech party”. This was the 2017 edition of Porto Summer of Code that this year was transformed into Make or Break.
“The goal is to enhance the technological community of Porto. To provide all participants with three days of fun and learning, surrounded by a spirit of companionship and mutual aid.” – João Valente, Make or Break team
What started as a student programming competition, has become an event for creative people and hackers, students and workers, designers, programmers, gamers and technology lovers in general. Make or Break came back with several updates and with a special emphasis on learning and community building.
Taking place in the heart of the city, everything happened between September 8th and 10th. Three days guided by the energetic pace of the participants that were 100% focused to bring to reality the ideas emerged in the event. Each project was framed in one of 3 categories:
–Useful: things you could see yourself (or others) using;
–Funny: things that are entertaining, or generally make people laugh;
–Hardcore: things of enviable technical prowess;
Creativity and technical knowledge was clear in all the projects presented:
-HealthyScan – Discover potentially harmful products in your plate.
-Dhroraryus – Generates schedules intelligently according to one’s constraints and preferences.
-PiDrobe – Do you wake up to find yourself wondering what to wear?
-Poop’n’Pee – Rent your bathroom.
-Selftie – Helps the user to make predictions about certain tasks, check their actual duration, and improve their self-awareness.
-Where2.go – A recommendation system that improves your decision-making using neural networks.
-TravelBug – A machine learning algorithm that helps travelers find out their next destination.
-Porto Crypto Coin – Porto is a cryptocurrency that lets you hold, receive and send value in safe and fast way.
-HIT – Hands Interactive Therapy – Game to help in hands therapy and rehabilitation.
-myPlant – A user-friendly irrigation system for small plants.
-Uniquiz – An application for students to optimize the way they study and improve communication with professors.
-Jukebify – A cross-platform virtual Jukebox that interacts with Spotify – choose the next song by placing a bid!
The winners? They ones that excelled and took the prizes:
–TODOS – winner in the Useful category – a solution to find and group project annotations.
–WHOOPS – winner in the Funny category – an application to find and rate the best restrooms, with a toilet paper sensor and mini-game. Whoops! Where to poops?
–GOATIE SIMULATOR – winner in the Hardcore category – a simulator of goat populations with artificial intelligence.
Even though, prizes were not the goal, winners did not went home empty-handed. TV screens, game consoles and oculus rift were the reward for their work and for getting the votes from the jury.
“After three editions with final presentations and subsequent jury evaluation, we concluded that a “fair” approach where participants display their projects to the whole community contributes to a more dynamic environment. Participants have more opportunities to interact and judges understand better the projects carried out during the event.” – João Valente
All projects are open-source and will be available to anyone willing to modify or evolve them.
During this hackathon, there was also time for workshops dedicated to topics such as Introduction to 3D Printing, Hardware Maintenance, Create a Server from Zero among others. In total they had six, all of them delivered by entrepreneurs from the city and entities actively involved in the local ecosystem.
Make or Break was one of the first events to happen, within the Call for Activities initiative, and showed its direct impact on the local ecosystem. The Call for Activities by ScaleUp Porto, made available 70 thousand euros to support events by the local community to boost the ecosystem. Events started in July and will happen till the end of the year involving 8 local entities and hundreds of entrepreeneuras.
