Nucamp Graduates Win 1st Place in Hackathon with App to Help Ukrainian Refugees

Team TechDevies30 took first place at TH.0's HackHerth0n on March 4-6, 2022, in celebration of International Women's Day.

Congratulations to the team of five, Rebecca Lin, Andrea Rascol and the three from Nucamp, Veronica Adler (graduate), Patsy Price (student), and Team Captain Christine Anthony (graduate).

The Hackathon Challenges

Initially, teams were presented with three categories to choose from, each tackling a different topic related to diversity and inclusion, which were 1) People with Disabilities, 2) Indigenous Peoples, and 3) Military Veterans.

As the hackathon weekend approached, the crisis in the Ukraine escalated, prompting the organizers to add a fourth category to address Marginalized Communities—which is what the team ended up choosing.

In addition to building an app, the team was coached to author and record a pitch that involved business planning.

Expecting to write code all weekend, this came as a surprise to the team, as well as the subsequent crash course in entrepreneurship.

When reviewing the prizes for the winners, it makes sense why the pitch was as significant as the app itself:

• 8 weeks of business and peer to peer mentoring
• A go-to-market business plan created in collaboration with experts within the TH.0 network
• Introductions to 20 influencers within their industry
• 3 meetings with R&D, investors, and/or clients in the field
• and more

The Team

Nucamp Back End with Python student, Patsy Price, is a wife, mom of three, and grandmother to four who lives in Weed, CA and loves to play golf with her husband.

As Ukraine was on everyone's mind, Patsy began researching the state of refugees and discovered that over 50% are children.

Combined with her instincts as a mom, Patsy came up with the idea to help children ease their trauma, part of which involved a way to connect them to their fathers who were left behind to fight.

Her research and core idea became the driving theme behind the app and pitch.

As team captain, Nucamp Full Stack graduate Christine Anthony took on the tasks of gathering ideas from everyone and finding solutions.

Christine lives in Howard County, MD and despite working long hours, she always finds the time to help her kids with their homework and connect with them about their days.

Finding the time appears to be her specialty.

When I asked her what was something she learned about herself through the process, she was surprised at how quickly she was able to find solutions within an "ultra deadline-oriented environment".

"I'm one of those people who weighs all my options before making a decision, and I was amazed at how our ideas came together to build a solid product in a short amount of time."

From Fitchburg, MA, Nucamp Full Stack Veronica Adler likes being outside, on the mountains, at the park, and in the forests, always appreciating nature's beauty.

It makes sense that these affections brought her front-end-center working on the UI/UX.

After the team decided on what they were going to build, they decided a React app made the most sense.

Once the team discovered that the pitch was a huge piece of the hackathon, and being the most comfortable with React, Veronica stepped in to shoulder a significant portion of the code challenge with Patsy and Veronica's assistance.

The App

With the focus on helping refugee children, the team decided on building three key features to address trauma:

• Allow children to have a direct connection to their father who was left behind by being able to write or voice record direct letters to them
• Complete short exercises or answer prompted questions that enabled them to practice gratitude
• Guided sleep meditation to help calm a busy mind into a relaxed state

The app was first designed in Figma and then built in React with the long term plan of eventually switching to React Native to make it a native device app.

The prototype for the gratitude practice feature was written by Patsy in vanilla JavaScript.

What was the most challenging aspect of the hackathon that you overcame?

Veronica: I had never worked with code in a group setting before. We ended up having a lot of issues with merge conflicts that took some time to figure out. Thankfully, Patsy had a lot of knowledge working with Git. She was able to guide us through all the merge conflicts and get them sorted out.

Christine: Delivering the pitch. It took 18 cuts before I recorded a version that passed my personal quality standard. That meant staying up late the night before the deadline to ensure I had a version of the deliverable that met the requirements, then waking up early the next morning.

Patsy: As a student in the Python bootcamp, I didn't know React, so I wasn't sure I was able to contribute much on the code side. I ended up building a prototype of one feature in vanilla JavaScript that was included in the final presentation, which made me feel like it was worth it.

What did you learn about yourself by going through the hackathon experience?

Veronica: I discovered that I like working in teams! It was really helpful. I could ask someone to do some research about solving a specific coding problem while I worked on a different one, which made the process efficient.

Christine: I can come up with good solutions under pressure and it was surprising how fast things are able to come together.

Patsy: I learned that I could stick it out and help where I could, even if the tech stack wasn't one I was familiar with.

Favorite Moments

Everyone spoke about waking up Sunday morning and being pleasantly shocked at winning first place.

For Christine, there was a moment after when she, Veronica, and Patsy solved the Git branch errors and then felt a rush to race to the finish.

While the conflict in Ukraine brings somberness, being able to build a vision around ways to help through technology is something that the whole team can be proud of.