Hackathons are popular at TurnToTech. Students love participating in these 1 – 3 day, themed, intensive group competitions around the creation of mobile apps, and each week a different group of students competes to create an app that fits a particular theme. Later on, the app is evaluated by faculty based on set criteria such as ease of use, design, functionality, etc.
This week, in lieu of a hackathon, we decided to to turn up the heat by doing what we call a “Launchathon,” which operates similarly to a hackathon, but the purpose is for them to create a viable product and launch it to the App Store. Instead of multiple groups competing against each other, the launchathon is composed of one small group of students who race against the clock to launch a fully-functional iOS app.
This week’s team decided to go with an Ultraviolet Index app that tracks the UV Index and gives a warning when it rises above a certain level – and it also includes sun protection factor.
Some of the hiccups they encountered included determining which is the best API for getting up-to-date UV data for particular latitudes and longitudes, and getting the app to display correctly on multiple device types.
Their challenge was building a usable app that was simple enough to code and launch within the required time-frame. Their strategy? Divide and conquer! By splitting up the labor amongst themselves, they were able to design and build a user interface with animations, build the various classes they needed, learn how to interact with the API to get the data they needed, and write code in both Objective-C and Swift.
These hackathons are done specifically so that students may hone their skills and build upon and improve what they have already learned in class. The hands-on coding experience that they get through these projects will help them prepare for similar challenges they may face out in the workplace.
To download their fully functional app, check out UV Index Today in Apple’s App Store https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/uv-index-today/id1140244854?mt=8
