What do you mean Ferry Hackathon? (Day 1)

It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything and I apologize for the constant procrastination.

So, this past weekend, I participated in something called a Ferry Hackathon(an event to celebrate the 150th anniversary of Osaka’s Port). When I tell people that I’m going to a ferry hackathon, they will almost certainly ask “what do you mean ferry hackathon?”

If you’re reading this blog, you’re probably involved in the IT industry – that or we just happen to be Instagram/Facebook friends – so I’m assuming you know what a hackathon is. Basically, we just program all day and night whilst fueling ourselves with energy drinks and tons of junk foods.

A ferry hackathon is exactly what the name implies – a hackathon on a ferry! Can things get any funner than this?(Obviously a rhetorical question..)

As this was a ferry hackathon, we were required to think of and develop a ferry-related product or service.

By the way, this was already 11 at night so you can imagine what a long night it was going to be.

This was similar to my final idea. I wanted to develop a service that would connect the ferry-goers who were essentially stuck with each other for hours. I thought it would be fun if there was a platform where they could get to know each other and perhaps make a new friend or two.

Anyway, we ended up with 6 members in our team with half being students(including me). I was a bit worried because I only had experience developing iOS applications. I was secretly hoping that we could do smartphone applications but the consensus was that we develop a web application. That mean that I had to study HTML+CSS really quickly and straight away program. Not at all complaining though because it was surprisingly fun to try to learn something really fast and HTML+CSS is definitely beginner-friendly.

None of the team members knew each other beforehand, so there were some ice-breaking in between discussion. Day 1 ended around 4am for our team – had to wake up at 6 in the morning the next day. Barely slept but I guess that is what a hackathon is!

Going to write about the second day in another post!