Post-hackathon update -
Link to our presentation slides - https://www.haikudeck.com/smartopia-uncategorized-presentation-35bb9834cf
Event Organization - I'll convey my thanks to the organizers who managed the event impeccably. Everything from food to demo setups to communication was well taken care of. This is quite remarkable for a bunch of college students who ensured to keep everyone happy! Some even cared to bring Red Bulls and snacks to us to our hacking stations in the wee hours of the night/morning so we didn't go hungry. Kudos to the SUTD WTH Organizing Team!
Swag - It was limited and restricted to the first few people who showed up. As a solo participant busy with completing my project, I definitely didn't have the luxury of time to go grab those extremely limited T-shirts (while competing again with other people). It was a free event which was otherwise exceptionally organized so this is just a minor nitpick :)
Judging - Here's where I had my gripe in the hackathon since everything was smooth till this point. The judging time was 5 minutes which was too little for the work we did in 24 hours. A project of a huge scale like Smartopia requires at least 6-7 minutes for the VR experience alone. A pitch adds 2-3 minutes. 10 minutes should have been ideal. Smartopia's presentation was cut short mid-sentence in 5 minutes and the judges saw only one of the eight scenarios (which gives less than a 5% idea of what we've built and doesn't respect the effort put in at all). That's like reviewing a feature film based on the first ten minutes or a AAA game from the intro cut-scene. Consequently, Smartopia didn't win. Since each team got 5 minutes each, it's equally unfair ;)
I could see that they loved the idea but they seemed to be in such a hurry that they didn't experience this or any other project in actual Virtual Reality. For me, winning was secondary, all I wanted was for them to see my completely functional VR experience the way I intended to, which they didn't.
Everyone who did experience Smartopia after the hackathon said it's absolutely cool and that it's unbelievable for such a huge project to be completed alone in 24 hours! I'm not bitter or anything from the results, this is just an observation and a note to self for future such events.
Demo and Setup Ambience - A hackathon, by definition, is a sprint-like event which requires a working prototype by the end. The focus is on collaboration and sharing, not competition. Unfortunately, even though SUTD WTH supported the spirit of Free Software and sharing, it ended up being just another competition where winning was pitched as the be-all-and-end-all. I'll say the same for the rest of the teams and visitors roaming around our demos. Either they were shy, or they were disinterested in watching other people's VR demos. By the end of the hackathon, a total of 3 people saw what I had built (just one organizer out of them). This culture definitely needs to change into one of collaboration and sharing what one has built. I remember being a part of MIT Media Lab's week-long Design Workshop and at the end of it all there was a demo day where no prizes were given out. Visiting each stall was actively encouraged. I'm not against prizes, I'm just saying there should be more people visiting what we had all built. Despite an amazing carnival-like setup with huge screens and top-of-the-line VR headsets, it didn't end up being a carnival as such a unique hackathon could have been. I would have loved a fun-filled lively atmosphere where everyone was showing everyone what they had built.
Hackathon Experience - Enough gripes, the hackathon was a blast! I absolutely enjoyed the 24 hours of actual hacking. I had planned for this to be a solo project as a personal challenge (which I successfully completed!). Mai joined in within the first hour but had to leave a couple of hours later before returning next morning. I happily accepted her in the team because she had the courage to show up at a hackathon to learn something new as a 20-year old without much idea of how Game Development or programming works. I love that spirit and that's what hackathons are about. She did help with certain game sounds and music since that was challenging enough for her and fast enough for me to teach without sacrificing my hacking time :)
Since I was confident to do all of this on my own, I didn't mind her limited availability at all. I entered monk-mode and started designing. No caffeine, no sugarfree taurine, no junk food. Just plain old water and the healthy food that organizers had provided (I'm really happy with their choice of menu and their attention to people's dietary restrictions). There were quite a few times when Smartopia seemed to have completely stuck or slowed down. DontDestroyOnLoad saved my life. If I was stuck with controlling the drone, I would work on 360 videos. If the raycasts weren't working, I would write scene management code. When nothing was working, I made notes for this devpost and our pitch :P Overall, a very productive 24 hours sprint which you can see from the video linked with this article. All this solo game design in Unity actually made me feel like Unity, the hivemind from Rick and Morty.
To wrap up, I'll say that I'm glad to be a part of this SUTD WTH. Minor issues with the design of judging aside, I learned a lot and hacked a lot and had fun! I definitely got a huge confidence boost by participating solo and successfully completing what I had planned to build.
To those who actually reached this point in this post, you might be going places in life or going nowhere. There's no in-betweens after you read such a long post ;)
Grok on, don't forget to be awesome, keep hacking!
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