by Sahana Rao (’26) | March 22, 2024
Early this March, Saint Francis High School hosted LancerHacks VII, our campus’s annual coding competition. The hackathon spanned 15 hours, allowing students to not only work in groups to complete their creations but also to engage in a range of activities fostering camaraderie. The event welcomed over 100 students of all skill levels from various high schools and middle schools across the Bay Area. It was more than just a coding competition; it was a platform to help coders hone their skills, gain confidence, and explore their potential as innovators.
This year’s prompt, “Around the World,” was chosen by Lily Ozaeta (’25) and provided a guiding principle for the participants’ projects. Within this broad theme, participants had the opportunity to address pressing global issues across four distinct categories: Human Rights/Dignity, Climate/Environment, Food/Water Insecurity, and Access to Education.
The “Best Overall” project was EarthKarma from Tej Nadkarni (’25), Caleb Obico (’25), Krish Kalra (’25), and eighth grader Rocky Jia, who aimed to improve the environment by creating a “pollution map” that individuals could use to designate if an area has pollution. Eshaan Andotra (’24), an organizer of the event, elaborated, “Volunteers could then go to these [designated] locations and provide a photo of before and after to verify [that] they have participated in cleaning up said location. In the future, they plan to integrate AI to help verify the photos. Once the photos have been verified, [the volunteers] receive ‘karma points’ which can be used on merchandise and gift cards to incentivize people to help.”
In addition to the overall winners, there were winners under each individual category, including Levi Lundmark (’25) and Devyn Ponnuvelu (’25), who won first place for the Human Rights/Dignity category with their project SafeSpace. Lundmark explained, “[We] created a program to help members of the LGBT+ community to feel safe when moving or traveling. It includes things like laws in different places, a map of the world, and links to resources that may be able to help people who are struggling. We included legality of homosexuality, adoption laws, and other similar pieces of information.” Ponnuvelu added, “We wanted to focus on making a program that is functional rather than flashy, so we spent a lot of time perfecting our code and coming at people’s situations from different perspectives. This strategy led us to create a quick escape button from our program, just in case our users need to quickly hide what they may be looking at.”
Behind the scenes, a team of fifteen dedicated organizers worked tirelessly to ensure the success of the event. Led by president Ruhi Yusuf (’24), the team took on various tasks essential for a smooth hackathon, from recruiting new team members to overseeing on-day logistics, and everything in between. To make the event as inviting as possible, Yusuf also ensured there were many fun and engaging activities for participants. “We spent months planning atypical hackathon games: carnival games, custom escape rooms, jeopardy, karaoke, etc.,” she noted. Reflecting on their efforts, Andotra shared, “Whenever I attended a big event or gathering, I never considered the amount of work time and planning that goes into everything; even the smallest details have to be refined… I have a newfound appreciation for those who organize big, complex events because of how much time they dedicate to ensuring they can pull off a flawless event.”
Overall, the event was a resounding success, but its impact wasn’t just the thousands of lines of code or the trophies awarded. Instead, the event touched participants with its welcoming environment and focus on inspiring them to use code to help our world. “I think that LancerHacks is unique because of how welcoming and open it is to anyone and everyone. There are people there as young as sixth grade, and they are appreciated with the same openness and encouragement as the high schoolers,” shared Lundmark. “It’s also advertised to not only Lancers, but other people as well, including some homeschoolers and people from other high schools. Everyone is welcome, and everyone is appreciated.” Yusuf echoed this positive sentiment. “I enjoy seeing people’s faces light up on event day when their code finally works, when they’re happy with their recently finished presentation, or when they’re shocked when they win a prize. Over the past four years at LancerHacks, I’ve had many people come up to me later and say that participating at LancerHacks changed their interests and made them interested in CS. It’s a great way to see how one event can impact a wide array of people.”
