Hackatrain 2018

How about having a hackathon on a train? 6 hours on a train, without internet, with a speed over 180 km/h. Sounds crazy but rather cool, isn’t it? Consider a high-speed train heading to Berlin with 100+ participants spread over two train wagons. Here at Parkmobile, we like cool things and the spirit of innovation, needless to say, I’m in!

Diving deeper

You probably think that a hackathon looks like this:

Yeah right, I wish. The beers will come later. First, get your hands dirty:

There were 14 teams with 6 participants in each team. A team contains a few software developers (usually 2-3), scientists and 1-2 students (completely non-IT folks). For example, there were two students in Theatre and Performance Studies in my team. There are also people outside of the teams: coaches, mentors and support staff. Time is very limited and you start coding only in the evening of Day 1 (certainly after dinner and a few beers) while pitches start at 2:00 PM on the Day 2. The winning team gets 5, 000 euro gross.

Parkmobile mates

Lessons learned

I do hate scrolling down all the way to the bottom of the page to see what really matters. Hence I break the rules and put important stuff right here.

There are a few key points I took from this event. There are actually a lot more of them, but here I list crucial only:

• Parkmobile is a great company! Ahaha, now seriously. Having talked to the other participants (huh, competitors!) I clearly see that Parkmobile invests much more into the innovation and technical development of our people. Perhaps because we are part of BMW Group. Or, let’s be honest, that’s why we are part of BMW Group.

• Acceptance criteria. Ask how the jury is going to choose the winner. We were all surprised with the choice…
• Communication. People like to talk and they do talk a lot, a lot more than needed. Absolutely neither listening nor analyzing what others have just said. And they try to make a useless point and then they try to prove their point. And you have to learn how to stop those useless discussions and wasting the time and instead keep the team’s focus on the challenge. That is the best you can gain from hackathons
• Time management. Oh how many participants I’ve seen in panic mode on the Day 2, especially closer to the pitch time. Finally they realize how much time they wasted on nothing. Hackathon is a great excercise that builds discipline
• Teamwork. Don’t do the same mistake when you want to sit alone doing your part. You will end up with typical problem: your part works pretty well, however whole solution does not work at all.
• Energy and drive. Every team needs someone energetic and proactive. A team is loosing the willingness to win as soon as they encounter unexpected issues. Thus form the team in such a way that you have at least one energetic doer. Someone who pushes forward and does not give up.
• Go to the first row if you want nice pictures afterwards. Seriously, those lazy photographers did not bother taking pictures of people further than 1-2 rows. Sit in the first row during all events and you become a star :)

Challenge

The challenge was kept a secret till the very last moment before we got on the train.

You are going to the concert that ends late at night. Develop the solution by utilizing Mobility-As-A-Service, 3rd party API and Blockchain to help the users return home in time and according to their preferences.

The solution is not a big deal. The 3rd party API are well specified, we’ve got the specs from 9292, NS train ad Parkmobile. This covers all the transport and logistics from trains and buses to cars and even parking lots. The main problem was a blockchain. What are you going to use it for??

Solution

High-level architecture

The user interface is written in python

IBM Hyperledger Fabric model

Day 1

We gathered in Amsterdam Central Station at 8:30 AM, had breakfast and met our teams. A few minutes to socialise and we were ready to get on the train.

The train is full. Berlin, here we come!

That was quite warm weather and it was incredibly hot inside the train. We had to change our sweaty T-shirts every now and then.

Finally, the team sits together and we begin brainstorming.

At that moment, the main challenge was to stay together and follow the discussion. A lot of people constantly passing nearby were distracting us

And the next distraction was that noise produced by all of us. And that fluffy unicorn

In a few more hours we were completely exhausted, and finally silence came to the stage.

Ho-ho-ho. 100+ geeks in front of Berlin Central Station.

On-site. Everybody is looking for a cozy place for the team.

Time for dinner.

Let the coding fun begin!

And the coding continues at night

Best of late-night

Very late at night

It’s almost morning

Day 2

The next day we started at 7:00 AM. Quick breakfast and using a car-sharing DriveNow to get back to the venue

Convertible helps to wake up

Creating the presentation

Getting ready for the pitch

The pitch is ready and looks promising

In the meantime

We found ParkNow advertisement (ParkNow is our brand in Germany)

And this strange guy in front of The Berlin Wall

And the bike-sharing services. Lime E-bike vs orange city bike

Oh, look at this! There is a Mercedes A-class from Car2Go

Or better this GLA-class? Certainly, we tried both :)

Back to Pitch

Let the fun begin! Zahy is on fire

Lucas is invisible. There is his team is presenting

And here is my team presenting

Done. Jury is deciding

Ah, and the sweaty winners. They worked hard

It was a great event and a lot of fun. We’ve gained great experience and made new connections, especially with guys from IBM and ING.

Time to go home

Tired but happy!