Coding Club organizes Nashville Regional Hackathon

Putting their hacking skills to the test, Rohan Ramachandran ‘25 and Collin Chan ‘25 hosted at USN the first hackathon in Nashville for high school students across the city.
By Ian Dinkins, Assistant Director of Marketing and Communications

On Sunday, September 15, Rohan Ramachandran ‘25, Coding Club President and the Nashville Regional Hackathon’s founder and Vice President  Collin Chan ‘25, brought the first hackathon in Nashville for High Schoolers to USN.

A hackathon is an event in which a large number of people meet to engage in collaborative computer programming. 

As Rohan explains, “We want students to realize that it’s more than just about coding; it’s about bringing together a tight-knit community of highly motivated engineers to create something that could turn into a startup. We want to fuel that collaboration and make sure no kid with big dreams is stopped by a lack of resources or a supportive community. I was inspired by the fact that most kids at science fairs and symposiums in the state were going at it alone. So I thought, what if we could get all these smart kids in one room to work on something together?” 

The hackathon brought teams from across Nashville together, including a USN home team (Colin Xie ‘27, Ruchika Ramachandran ‘27, Siddharth Voona ‘25, and Ismaeel Moskinzada ‘26), to code to solve a challenge outlined at the beginning of the event. Students of all skill levels were able to participate as ChatGPT, and all internet resources were permitted when coding. Points were awarded for the solution's potential impact, presentational skill, technical implementation, and teamwork. 

Participants were given the challenge, "Student well-being is facing increasing challenges. Key concerns include mental health, feelings of loneliness, and school security. Your task is to design and/or build an application, algorithm, or AI model that can address one or more of these critical issues, aiming to improve the overall health and safety of students. Consider how your solution can provide support, create connections, or enhance security measures within the school environment."

Students were also given a separate bonus problem asking them to approximate a differential equation in Python using Euler’s Method, inspired by HS Math Teacher Justin Fitzpatrick’s curriculum. Teams displayed excellent teamwork, leveraging each member’s skill set. Certain team members were assigned the task of making presentations, others solving the bonus problems, others making the website, and others coding backend algorithms.

After three hours of coding, USN and Mount Juliet High School advanced to the final round. They presented their solutions to our panel of three judges (Wilson Hubbell, AP Physics & Engineering Teacher; David Stewart, Parent & Principal Architect at Built Technologies; Raj Ramachandran, Senior Manager, Product & Tech, Last Mile, Amazon). 

Mount Juliet High School placed first for its full-stack development of BrightMind, a social media app that enables students to write journal entries, post them, and friend other students. For the bonus, they developed an extra algorithm to determine the optimal step size for Euler’s Method, balancing computational efficiency with accuracy and demonstrating their commitment to go above and beyond.

University School of Nashville's Colin Xie ‘27, Ruchika Ramachandran ‘27, Siddharth Voona ‘25, Ismaeel Moskinzada ‘26 placed second for their design of Classendar, a peer support application enabling students to post class materials, notes, and slideshows for absent peers that can be filtered by an admin.

Contact Rohan or Collin if you are interested in participating in the next hackathon. The Coding Club is looking for leaders next year. Fill out this form if you are interested in participating in the next hackathon. Future hackathons will be open to Middle and High Schoolers, and minimal coding experience is needed. 
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