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BeachHacks brings programmers to CSULB for 24 hours of creation

In the Seal Beach room of the University Student Union, 35-packs of soda and water bottles were stacked halfway to the ceiling like towers. On the opposite wall, similar box towers were filled with muffins, bagels and Krispy Kreme doughnuts. Coolers of Red Bull energy drinks stood in between.

This wasn’t an elaborate stockpile for the apocalypse or someone’s wildest dream. It was there to feed over 350 coders as they programed off and on for 24 hours.

BeachHacks, a hackathon hosted by the Cal State Long Beach Association for Computing Machinery, was the first hackathon on campus. It began Saturday at 4 p.m. and went until 4 p.m. Sunday.

This was the fourth hackathon for computer science junior Aaron Turner. During BeachHacks, he created a Super Mario-style computer game with his girlfriend, junior animation major Leah Garza, about an astronaut samurai. The game was for his company, No Comply Games.

Turner said hackathons could be a daunting task during, but the projects and collaboration makes them worth it in the end. Plus: free food.

“When you’re halfway through you’re like ‘Why did I do this? I hate myself. I should just go home, everybody else is, why am I staying here?’” Turner said. “Then when you’re done you’re like ‘This is the greatest thing I’ve done in my life.’”

A hackathon is a marathon-like programming competition. People get together in teams or solo to develop and build software projects in the allotted time.

Michael Botsko, president of ACM, said hackathons are typically 24 hours although some are 36.

“When you’re running for this long you have this unspoken community,” Botsko said.  “You have people who are maybe half in pajamas just walking around, their hair’s a mess, but no one is judging them because your hair’s a mess [and] you’ve been up 24 hours trying to code.”

According to Botsko, Long Beach has a solid foundation in computer science education but still lacks the tech culture where collaboration on projects happens regularly. BeachHacks was a learning experience and an introduction to that culture for the uninitiated.

“In the opening ceremony, one of the speakers asked [the crowd], ‘How many of you is this your first hackathon?’” Botsko said. “And I’d say three quarters of the room raised their hand.”

The hackathon included development workshops and a team building exercise to assess participant’s interests and match them with others. Botsko said BeachHacks was an open environment for people of all skill levels.

“… Maybe you have a bunch of newbies clustered together learning, which is great too, or you have a bunch of senior level [developers] still learning because they’re talking to other people about ideas,” Botsko said. “I think it balances itself out.”

BeachHacks was the first hackathon for Bryan Guerre, a senior computer science major. Guerre said participating in hackathons is a great addition to his resume but they also fit in with his style of programming.

“I already like developing in spurts and sprints,” Guerre said. “I thought it’d be cool to get together with like-minded people and just go and get it done. No questions asked [and] as fast as you can.”

Together with computer science majors Chris Retanich and Vrezh Gulyan, a junior from Cal State Northridge, Guerre created a mobile app for Android and Apple devices. It takes a user’s destination and compares the fare cost between Uber and Lyft ridesharing apps.

While the time is regulated, the projects and their scale are left entirely to the participants.

“No one’s expecting anything crazy, but sometimes a simple idea can go a long way, and that’s kind of the idea of these hackathons,” Botsko said. “Just explore your skills then try to build upon them in a short time span and see what you’re capable of.”

Botsko is hoping to start a trend of more BeachHacks at CSULB. He said these competitions are an opportunity for learning new skills and gaining experience that employers look for.

“Not having this on your resume is almost detrimental sometimes in an employer fashion especially in the computer science industry,” Botsko said. “So building on that: I wanted to try and offer this to as many people as possible especially at the Cal State Long Beach campus.”

One Comment

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    How safe is this? 24 hour non stop of coding/programming and how can you even think that the mind of a person sis still working after you exhaust everything you know. Another important thing is you are inviting non programmers like it says to your website to somehow experience on how to program or how programming works, for me this is a big BS. If you want something that is worth useful, you should only be interested to those people who have the knowledge and ability to create a program. You should also be careful who attend your event, many students who are in this course that wanted to learn while others are doing profiling those students.

    Here are some questions i would like to know.

    –How safe is this place? can you sleep while all people are or your groups are working?
    –are there any security guards in the premises?
    –Do you do background checks on everyone? how can you tell a predator to non predator?
    –How long have you been doing this kind of event?

    Piece of advise, if the students already come with the group, LET THEM BE! never encourage them to join people they don’t know. Programming is a SKILL not some regular Joe who doesn’t know crap will learn it just like that. PROTECT OUR CHILDREN.

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