Wear(able)-Hackathon by Mobile.Cologne

I have to say it was the first event of this kind I attended, but it won't be definitely not the last one. I promise. So many smart people, all with the same passion and love for coding amazing apps for those tiny little devices as well as the same kind of humor.

Xamarin, Cross-platform, C#

It all started with a three-word-introduction of everyone. Xamarin, Cross-platform, C# was mine. What else could have me introduced better to a crowd full of Java enthusiasts? Did I mention the sense of humor?

After the short tour of introductions we got a round-up about the possibilities of Android Wear and the Wearable-movement in general. For all of us, it was clear that Smartwatches, Smartbands and everything starting with smart in its name could only be the beginning. That's way nobody was really surprised by the amount of ideas that got presented to the crowd. Most of them rose during the introduction talks.

What Can Be Archived In Four Hours

My first idea was inspired by the Nearest Bus app from Nic Wise. But that was picked up by someone else. I wasn't too much disappointed because the one that really drives me was my second one: Geo.Wear.

Geo.Wear should be an app for geo-caching where you easily pick a cache from a list and your Android Wear smartwatch show you the direction. With the help of Steffen, I've met him there and he was the other part of my team, we got the basic idea running at the Moto360 within 3.75 hours. The rest of the time we got our presentation ready.

It was impressive to see what was archived in four hours of designing and coding by every team. The jury clearly had a hard job to decide which of the twelve ideas should win this competition. They had to choose between some cool apps like the Peble-style-unlock, a resuscitation helper, a heartbeat tracker, a menstrual cycle notifier and many more. Geo.Wear not to mention.

What You Can Learn At Hackathons

Basically I was on the way to leave because I had not booked an overnight stay, which meant I had to drove back home for two hours, as the winner was announced. Hence I was all the more surprised when they choose Geo.Wear as the winning idea. We were surprised and pleased.

I for myself learned a lot over the four hours. I used Android Studio and I liked it so far. Especially the designer and auto-completion is neat and could be something that would improve Xamarins Android designer for sure. At the time it arrives, it was and still is a big hit in the market. I am sure they are aware off this.

Be open and think outside the box. If you consider this, you can meet nice and clever people, which is fun to work with. The next Hackathon will surly be visited by me. And hopefully we meet there.