A seven-month journey of our hackathon committee made up of HKN volunteers brought to life the first-ever IEEE-HKN International Hackathon. This idea was sparked at the 2023 Student Leadership Conference in Houston, where HKN’s young minds met and connected. We realized how much potential HKN offers for international collaboration among students and envisioned an event that would allow us to come together in a hands-on, engaging way, one that could transcend time zones and distance. A hackathon felt like the perfect solution: a multi-day online competition centered around a main theme, filled with engineering challenges for participants to tackle.
This year, as we celebrate 120 years of our distinguished society, it seemed only fitting to theme our first hackathon around HKN’s founding. Our founders, especially Maurice L. Carr, envisioned a society that would eventually become international, as it is today, more than a century into the future. To capture this spirit, our team combed through HKN’s historical records, seeking insights into the visionary students who founded HKN. We imagined them facing various challenges, often misunderstood by school leaders who didn’t yet see the value in an organization dedicated to the professional growth of young, bright, and philanthropic engineers. At HKN, scholarship is joined by character and integrity, and we used these tenets to inspire creative stories in which our founders faced fictional “nemesis” characters that tested their values and resolve.
The 12 participating teams, from chapters around the world, took on challenges in electrical engineering, computer science, and math to help our founders “defeat” these nemesis figures and stay true to HKN’s core values. For example, Maurice L. Carr faced obstacles in establishing the Beta Chapter when a dean failed to grasp the importance of HKN. In our hackathon narrative, teams helped Carr “travel” through time by solving electronics tasks, enabling him to found the Beta Chapter.
The hackathon combined challenging engineering problems with a fun and educational storyline. Teams formed both within individual chapters and internationally, allowing our members to collaborate, learn from each other’s problem-solving approaches, and grow as professionals enriched by cultural and intellectual diversity. As young volunteers, it was inspiring to connect with our HKN peers, forming bonds and friendships. The original nine founders of HKN were true friends, motivated not by personal gain but by a philanthropic drive to create something meaningful for future generations, a spirit that we carried forward in this event.
Here were the competing teams, of which only five reached the podium, winning fantastic prizes from our sponsor, TestEquity, to whom we extend our gratitude for supporting our project:
- Team 1: What the Iota Sigma? (Iota Sigma – Temple University)
- Team 2: Shockingly Efficient (Mu Nu – Polytechnic University of Turin, Sigma – Carnegie Mellon University, Mu Kappa – UQ Brisbane, Iota Kappa – Montana State University)
- Team 3: Light Emitting Resistor (Lambda Omega – National University of Singapore)
- Team 4: 409 Conflict (Gamma Sigma – University of Utah)
- Team 5: Busy Beaver (Beta Theta – MIT)
- Team 6: Leo (Nu Theta – Purdue University Northwest)
- Team 7: The Dam Beavers (Pi – Oregon State University)
- Team 8: Unit Patrol Squad 1 (Theta Kappa – California State University Fresno)
- Team 9: Team Taco (Theta Kappa & Lambda Beta – California State University Northridge)
- Team 10: Jumbos (Epsilon Delta – Tufts University)
- Team 11: Legendtic (Nu Eta – Sri Sairam Engineering College)
- Team 12: Thetastic Coders (Theta – UW Madison)
As for the Top Five winning teams? Congratulations to:
Shockingly Efficient, Light Emitting Resistor, Thetastic Coders, Jumbos, and Leo.
In the end, all teams presented their best work to a jury of IEEE and IEEE-HKN professionals, who assessed their projects. We believe this event marked a milestone, providing invaluable lessons for chapters to develop an engaging, hands-on format that can bring us together each year. This hackathon empowered us to test our skills and engineering abilities, not just within our chapters but internationally with our HKN peers, fostering mutual learning and growth. Thank you to HKN for believing in and supporting our vision!
