For the 15 teams competing at HackMT 2025, app development took priority over sleep.
Over 130 participants raced the clock in the annual competition from Jan. 31 – Feb. 2. Team leaders presented their ideas on the Science Building’s second floor before the groups moved downstairs to present their projects to the event’s sponsors as well as spectators.
“Some students don’t know if they want to stick around,” event organizer Joshua Phillips said, “When they enter the room, they can feel the energy and tell if they want to stay.”
After the teams finished their presentations, the closing ceremony commenced. Sponsors voted for their top three teams. Team “Face-Off” received first place, while “hide-my-js” and “Breaking Bash” held second and third respectively. “BlueBuddy” won the Hacker’s Choice Award, voted on by all participants.
In addition to these awards, HackMT prioritized learning and leadership through scholarship. Students Gavin Liles and Noah Smith received a scholarship thanks to their dedication and excellence.
“The allure of winning a competition is nice,” Phillips said at the opening ceremony. “However, you truly win if you learn a lot throughout this hackathon.”
Team “hide-my-js” used a programming language called Rust to create a JavaScript obfuscator. The application hid JavaScript source code by making it harder to understand. A few examples included renames of certain keywords and the addition of redundant code, team leader Ian Tatum said. Rust ensures the code is safe to run, but requires a different way of thinking.
“Some coders may not be exposed to lower-level programming,” Tatum said, “If you’re used to something like Python, where data types don’t matter, then Rust becomes a challenge.”
Some teams developed artificial intelligence to bring intriguing applications to the table. “Face-Off” won the sponsors over by using machine learning algorithms to detect faces and their emotions. This algorithm uses data to predict what is a face and adjust itself accordingly, mentor Fred Nelson said.
“If the AI model gets an image that isn’t a face and believes it’s a face, then it will see the negative result,” Nelson explained, “It’ll go ‘oh, that wasn’t a face. I’ll need to fine tune again.’”
“Breaking Bash” brought a creative twist to traveling through a navigational touring app. Whenever someone enters a town, they receive a fun fact tailored to their interests, team leader Garrett Hayes said. Despite the time crunch, they completed most of the prototype by Saturday afternoon.
“Try not to have everyone sleep at once,” Hayes advised future teams. “That way, progress remains consistent.”
“Breaking Bash” intends to implement over 100 “hidden gems” into the app after HackMT. When users enter certain towns, the app plays a special animation. As they discover more hidden gems, they receive better badges.
“BlueBuddy” aimed to ensure elderly safety through artificial intelligence. When an elderly user is home alone, this mobile app’s chat bot can check on their health by asking about their condition and complications, team leader Felopater Melika said. It reminds users to take medication, calls designated phone numbers in medical emergencies and casually chats to users about interests.
“We made sure this was an accessible app since elderly people are usually not the best with technology,” Melika said.
Prior HackMT events hosted an average of 12 teams, Phillips said. If the event keeps growing, he intends to move the hackathon to a larger building.
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