MontyHacks IV: Arjun, Jennifer, Gloria, and Nicholas

Inspiration

It was our first time working together collaboratively on such a big project as this one. Our inspiration was simply the fact that it was a brand new experience - and we wanted to do it well.

What it does

Our project has two main “activities” that the user can do. One involves creating an amino acid sequence from a 15 strand DNA sequence with steps that mimic the processes of transcription and translation. In this activity, users can also input three RNA base pairs and see what amino acid it results in. This activity is linked to public health, as it allows scientists to look at a mutated gene and see what amino acids it produces (and potentially allows them to see what differences can occur as a result of the mutation). Our second activity revolves around epidemiology; we created a small quiz game which has lots of definitions and allows the user to match terms to them. By helping people understand what different epidemiological terms are, the code can help increase the understanding of public health within students.

How we built it

We started off initially with a plan of just finishing one minigame activity. However, our progress was a lot faster than we had initially anticipated, so we had time to complete multiple. We made a few flowcharts and rough drafts. We then spent the majority of the time debugging and improving our code.

Challenges we ran into

There were several challenges we went through. For the code itself, debugging was pretty frustrating! Sometimes a completely minor aspect being left out caused dozens of lines beneath it to fail as well. We worked from morning till night time, so we were pretty drained as well towards the end. In the end, though there were many challenges along the way, seeing the final product working properly was a great moment that gave us a sense of fulfillment and satisfaction.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Of course, the whole code has to be something we’re proud of. We’re all around the late beginner-intermediate level of coding, so pulling this off felt really good! It was also our first coding activity that we did in a group, and it was a really fun collaborative project.

What we learned

Not only did we learn some new coding methods and logic from each other, we also learned how fun coding could be. I think we’re all used to getting frustrated when the code doesn’t run (or if we have no idea at all how to begin writing for a challenge) that it was really refreshing to have so much fun during this Hackathon. We also learned that you have to have patience. Our code didn’t run for countless trials, but continuing to refine and pick at the little details resulted in the successful completion of the project! Also, we were all able to learn a lot through the various workshops that we participated in.