A no-frills geek meet, an effort from Better Labs, a tiny geeky company in Pune.
Jatinder Singh » few words of experience...
Hackathon: student's perspective:Swanand and Harish
We are live at the Hackathon with 10 teams working on some cool Rails projects. Stay tuned.
I requested Shashank Date to review and choose the first three winners. It was a very tough decision but here's what we came up with. **Please note that the decision was based on how well the application was completed as well as the amount of time the person had worked with Rails - which ranged from 6 months to 32 hours!
PuneRuby & SFBL prize money will be sent to the winners in the coming week.
Better Labs decided to change its award plan - its Rs.10,0001 for the coolest Rails application will now be shared amongst all the 9 teams with Rs.1000 each with the last Rs.1001 going to Pratik Naik for a superb hack. The very simple reason was the fact that everyone just did a stellar job and hacked through the weekend and really made the first Hackathon a huge success. It couldn't have been better.
We started looking at the demo's at 4PM and the session went on upto almost 7PM. It was awesome as we discussed the ideas, understood the inspiration of the participants and explored the next steps. Here are some glimpses:
I am helping tweak the UIs for the team and at the same time trying to come up with some relevant names for some of the web services being worked on. just about less than 2 hours to go :)
A very good morning from the Hackathon. A woke up to see a lot of progress made overnight and almost all the hacks are coming together well. The UIs are being tweaked and everyone is pushing towards the 4PM deadline to wrap things up. We are going to use Swanand and Harish's iPolls web service to vote on the best hacks :). Stay tuned.
See those overnight eyes?
I am calling it a day in a few minutes but Pratik, Gaurav, Geetesh, Akshay, Jatinder, Vishwanath are coding through the night. Thats the spirit guys! I am looking forward to waking up to some cool stuff ready to start reviewing.
QuickLib: a Rails-based library application for companies, small libraries and others with a collection that is being rented out
Deepak & Sudhanshu
Expens-o-meter: an expense tracking service in Rails
Vishwanath & Jatinder
Mars: The Red Planet (A Planet using RoR)
infotantra: A help service for Pune
Gaurav & Geetesh
iPolls: a poll creation web service
Swanand & Harish
iManage: the fastest ajax todo and reminder service
Nilesh & Surya
getEmail: a sales web service for sales professionals to quickly find out email formats for the target prospects
Sheetal & Raghu
iResume: the simplest way to publish your resume online
Ajay, Sandeep & Arun
Dalal's Treat: fantasy stock trading
Pratik
Hackathon.in is a no-frills geek meet. Pune Rails Hackathon is the a Rails development weekend where passionate Ruby/Rails programmers can get together and build some cool web services and applications on Ruby/Rails, creating the early prototypes. The idea is really to foster a gathering of like minded Ruby & Rails ethusiasts (whether you are an expert or just a starter, it should not matter) to come together and build something cool. Since this is the first hackathon of this sort in Pune (everyone from all over India is very much welcome), we will have mentors who will suggest a range of small footprint web applications or web services that can be built within the 2 day period. Suggestions & ideas for web services and applications will be added to this wiki over the next few days so you can choose what you might be interested in. Ofcourse, you can build whatever you like. The venue (Better Labs office) will be open all day and night so you can plan your work accordingly. Please email any thoughts and ideas to vaibhav at betterlabs.net. Please see suggested applications below and add more. This event is FREE.
About Better Labs
Someone recommeded that we add a small bit here about Better Labs, so everyone can have a perspective. We are a bootstrapped startup based in Pune, with a laser focus on developing a new generation of consumer web services and small footprint business web applications. We adore open source software and develop primarily using Ruby On Rails and LAMP. We obsess about user experience and keep our web services focused on specifc pain points - trying not to address too many problems with a single solution. Thats us in a nutshell. Here's some early web services that we have deployed so far:
dealplumber , dealplumber blog
indiagoes (upcoming update) . Password: barcamphyd
Password to edit wiki is ihack. Please be responsible while editing and ensure the formating to keep it readable. Vaibhav, Satish & Dibya are primarily updating the agenda and so on.
14 Trade Field,
Opposite Sony World Showroon
Sanghavi Nagar, Aundh
Pune 411007
India
July 29-30, 2006
START: 9:30AM at the above venue, kickoff at 10:30AM
All day and night
Presentations will start Sunday afternoon
(These are just suggestions. You can create any application that you may want)
Please add your name and company name here. Email and/or phone is optional. Spread the word to your geeky friends and colleagues who may be interested.
Post your questions here.
Any entry fee or other charges to participate?
No, there is no entry fee or any other fee at all. You will just have to manage your own lunches and dinners :) Tea and coffee will be from Better Labs.
What kind of arrangements have been made?
We are still working towards it but essentially we will be working towards keeping a set number of computers ready for the participants to use. Those who have laptops are requested to bring that along. We will provide some free Rails hosting as well for the applications for the Hackathon.
Would some kind of books and reference material provided or be allowed to refer on the internet during the contest? (this is more like a necessity)
Yes, on both counts. We will have the Rails book as well as the Rails 1.1 PDF book available for everyone. All machines will be online so you will be able to research online.
What is the schedule and timming etc.? It would make it easier for people from outside pune to plan appropriately.
We will shoot for everyone to get together at the venue between 9:30-10AM and kick-off at 10:30AM.
Please note that prizes are just a way for interested companies to motivate and inspire the hackathon participants :-)
Ashish Kulkarni and Satish Talim
Vaibhav Domkundwar