A new kind of event took place on Oct. 13 at Pearson Ranch Middle School, attracting hundreds of students and volunteers to participate in the first ever CodewizardsHQ Hackathon. The goal of the Hackathon was to connect middle school and high school students from Round Rock ISD across different coding experiences to local CodewizardsHQ mentors and to have each group of students choose a project to solve a real-world problem.

“We worked on a way to track calories in meals per day, so you would input what meal you ate and then it would ask how many of those meals you had,” Mark Menezes (8) said. 

Using Python to build Front-End applications, others had worked on todo-lists, a Google home assistant connection to Google classroom, two-factor authentication, a geolocator, and many more, all ideas made to solve problems.

The students were instructed to create a project using their coding experience and were expected to create a presentation about their idea.

Halfway through the Hackathon, people were teaming with ideas, and after grouping up with others, got to work on their projects. There were 22 groups in total, each on a separate project.

Meanwhile, the students who didn’t know much about coding were at a Python class where they could learn Python in fun ways.

“I was in a Python class where we learned how to make a Python Flappy Bird,” Brady Richards (8) said.

Once all groups were completed with their project, they all came together in the cafeteria for food and for the announced winners of the Hackathon. The winners received a scholarship and candy for their hard work. One of the winning teams had worked on a Geo-locator app.

“I liked the first ever Hackathon, and I would go there again,” Ninaad Patil (8) said.