Eject

The last time we had a chance to take part in a Hackathon, we were in our first year of study. Obviously, it didn’t end up as well but here we are today, and we just won this GE Aviation Challenge. Let’s sum up what we have learned and enjoyed.

First of all, the whole organization was great. We had everything we needed and we had it on time, which was refreshing. We learned how to use the Predix platform in a short amount of time, and how to manipulate chunks of data so big that our laptops could barely handle them! Working with real data on an application which has a real purpose is something which was new for us and it was very exciting.

Managing to get the best out of this data was an interesting challenge. As some would say, it’s like looking for a needle in a haystack (of data). It was not all easy, and we ran into a lot of technical problems since most of the technologies we used were new to us. We learned a few languages on the fly and managed to release both an algorithm and an app from scratch, we are really proud of that.

The human challenge was omnipresent too as it was stressful and some of us had some school obligations. I think we handled that quite well, since we were able to stick together and to come up with a successful pitch! Our final application was simple and ergonomic enough to allow any user, technically proficient or not, to identify incoming heat issues in engines. The service was developed for great accuracy.

What’s next? We have a lot on our minds. We would like to pitch at the NUMA and then take part in the GE Industrial Challenge. We also have a few very exciting ideas that would be useful to collect data in a brand new way! We would be glad to keep working on the Predix platform in collaboration with GE and possibly connect that with our studies.

This whole ecosystem is a fantastic way to power-up our skillset, along with solving real world problems that may save a lot of money, and maybe even save human lives. Thanks for the support!