Glasgow University Technology Society Code Olympics

This event was a different interpretation of a hackathon. Instead of creating one large project, all teams were presented with a series of small programming challenges. All the puzzles were worth points depending on their difficulty. There were also development challenges set by companies where you needed to develop a short program to solve a small or medium-sized task.

Before the event, we met as a team to discuss how we would approach this event. Our strategy was to look through all the puzzles, and if there was a free puzzle someone wanted to work on, the person would claim it. If they cannot solve it in a reasonable amount of time, they posted the code on our discord server and communicated which one they would work on next. This way, no one would work on the same puzzle and if someone has previously worked on an unsolved puzzle, the other team member would not have to start from scratch. On top of this, we would all work with one company to develop their short projects.

I worked with SaaS to develop a morse-code program. It worked by using an input file which the program would attempt to translate. If the input file was in morse code, the program would translate this to English. If the input file was not in morse code, it would translate the file into morse code and play the translated message through the speaker.

I also worked with JP Morgan to create a program which turned an informal text document into formal text. Unfortunately, this was towards the end of the event, so I did not have the time to get a working prototype. However, we still received points for the concept developed.

We finished the event 11th/40. Considering we were a team of 2nd-year computer scientists competing against senior university members, we were happy with the result.