It is quite the story for the team that took home the 3rd prize at the first Oerlikon Digital Hub Hackathon. Muhammad, Ludwig and Matt chose the Computer Vision challenge and it brought them straight to the podium. Enjoy their story!
Meet "Screw this", the winners of the 3rd Prize at the Oerlikon Digital Hub Hackathon
Who are the people behind “Screw This”?
Muhammad comes from Indonesia, he is currently pursuing an MSc Informatics at TUM and working part-time as a developer. He is passionate about technology and came to Munich to learn from some of the best minds in various fields of computer science and artificial intelligence.
Ludwig is the youngest participant and winner at our hackathon (only 19 years old), he is a student at the Fachoberschule in Neusaess, near Augsburg. He is also very passionate about learning new things in technology. Since he is not a CS student yet, he mostly spends his time coding and learning new coding languages by himself. Artificial intelligence is another of his interests, therefore Ludwig enjoys reading books about it and trying hands-on projects.
Matt is a XR Engineer, coming from the United States, obsessed with hand controls and computer vision for XR.
The hack. The team
A hackathon is a great place to learn new things, meet new people and challenge yourself. And that’s exactly what made this team come to our event. For Muhammad, it was the desire to learn new frameworks. And why not also win prizes and network with other people in the industry?
For Ludwig, this was his first hackathon, but it almost wasn't. After feeling that he is not proficient enough, he decided to come to the event, but only to look around and just observe how a hackathon actually works. He did not plan to actually participate and stay until the end, but he ended up so involved into the work he was doing with Matt and Muhammad, that he decided to stay. And what a good decision that was.
The solution
The team selected the Computer Vision challenge, where they were tasked with identifying the parts of drill bits, along with their measurements. They decided to use classical computer vision algorithms implemented with OpenCV that performs the computation in real-time and easy-to-use contraption to maximise user experience.
The team also built an extra box with a stand to have a real-time and easy to use tool. They wanted it to be customizable, so they built the whole box on stands in order to use another box under it for fast removal of the already scanned parts. In the end, the combination of the box with the stands and OpenCV (which enabled them to measure everything in real-time) turned out to be the perfect solution.
What did they enjoy the most at the hackathon?
Muhammad: The part that I enjoy the most was the moment when everything clicked and we managed to get a working solution for the given challenge. I also enjoyed networking with so many talented people, in addition to the prizes we won for winning the third place.
Ludwig: I really enjoyed the competition and teamwork. It was also great for networking and seeing others' approaches to the challenges. I am also very grateful for the support at Maker Space, since they helped us a lot to make the box and the stand for our product.
Return to the Hackathon blog post to read the other stories.
Feedback or questions? Get in touch with us!
