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Agreed. I wish hackathon judges actually understood how to question and analyze projects critically. I attended probably one of the most prestigious and well re

Agreed. I wish hackathon judges actually understood how to question and analyze projects critically. I attended probably one of the most prestigious and well regarded college hackathons, where the grand prize was won by a project that did speech to text, then text to sign language. What nobody pointed out or acknowledged, was that deaf people can read. But since the project was done on a HoloLens the judges got swept away by the fancy AR and awarded them the prize. I've become extremely skeptical of the hackathon model in general. It doesn't really produce good projects or products, it encourages an unsustainable style of working and it's a terrible place to recruit good developers. It can encourage people to build stuff, but only monkey patched, bursting with buzzwords, overly flashy projects that are thrown away at a moment's notice.

setr 7y ago
>What nobody pointed out or acknowledged, was that deaf people can read I actually did something similarly stupid in college; for an embedded development class, my team needed a final project. I proposed a hat for the blind, with distance sensors and buzzers on the inside to inform distance from the walls and such. We also used black conductive thread on a black hat, so it was impossible to work with except for the girl who threaded it in the first place. Easily the professor's favorite project, and I guess he still uses it as an example for future projects (and at some point he had some team extending it into some kind backpack?) Later a friend working at a retail store selling products for the disabled contacted me about the project; apparently his boss was interested. What no one acknowledged is that blind people are not walking into walls... the cane is far more practical, efficient and effective tool than this thing could ever be. I had meant it to be a joke.
- svachalek 7y ago
  Rebrand this as a device for people to not waste precious time looking where they're walking, and it's a gold mine.
  - squiggleblaz 7y ago
    "Ever worried about those people who are reading their phone while walking around? Now you can randomly put this hat on their head." The best thing about it is, the people who need and want the device aren't the ones walking around reading their phone, it's the ones who can't help but mind someone else's business - and this merely feeds their need rather than satisfies it. So there will be an never-ending market of unsatisfied busybodies.

setr 7y ago

>What nobody pointed out or acknowledged, was that deaf people can read I actually did something similarly stupid in college; for an embedded development class, my team needed a final project. I proposed a hat for the blind, with distance sensors and buzzers on the inside to inform distance from the walls and such. We also used black conductive thread on a black hat, so it was impossible to work with except for the girl who threaded it in the first place. Easily the professor's favorite project, and I guess he still uses it as an example for future projects (and at some point he had some team extending it into some kind backpack?) Later a friend working at a retail store selling products for the disabled contacted me about the project; apparently his boss was interested. What no one acknowledged is that blind people are not walking into walls... the cane is far more practical, efficient and effective tool than this thing could ever be. I had meant it to be a joke.

svachalek 7y ago
Rebrand this as a device for people to not waste precious time looking where they're walking, and it's a gold mine.
- squiggleblaz 7y ago
  "Ever worried about those people who are reading their phone while walking around? Now you can randomly put this hat on their head." The best thing about it is, the people who need and want the device aren't the ones walking around reading their phone, it's the ones who can't help but mind someone else's business - and this merely feeds their need rather than satisfies it. So there will be an never-ending market of unsatisfied busybodies.