Spring 2020, one month into lockdown.
April of 2020, during lockdown, as outreach coordinator for the robotics team, I co-organized a hackathon. The competition was designed for students of all ages to participate. Projects ranged from apps to robots, to drawings and more.
This competition was centered around the COVID-19 pandemic, and the issues that are arising in our community as a result. It was a wonderful way to teach kids about what is happening in the world right now, and form ideas around how they can make an impact.
My responsibilities included spreading the word about the competition to all the PTO’s and cultural organizations, recruiting and updating our judges (who included our LPS superintendent, school committee members and more), writing rubrics, managing participant responses, vetting project proposals, helping participants with their projects, creating certificates, giving feedback on submissions and much more.
I also created google chats for each coding language and specific tools that our participants may need help with. The members of our robotics team were assigned time shifts to cover over 48 hours of coding to support our competitors.
The hackathon was a resounding success, and we had participants from every school in the Lexington Public School System, as well as some from other towns and countries!