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blueprint @ mit: my first hackathon!!! (win???)

 blueprint 2025: nothole wins beginner 1st place

This past weekend I went to hackmit blueprint, a hackathon MIT hosts every year. I learned so much in this hackathon, built nothole in the hardware track, and surpassed all my expectations when my team actually won a prize (I am so excited for my raspberry kindle)!!
I have two posts for this-- one for my experience, and one for my actual project.

What I learned:


*Perseverance is an engineer's greatest asset--> our team had to pivot SO MANY times from changing sensors to server architecture to continuously rebooting our ESP because WiFi kept being offline. 3 hours before submission our project was COOKED. 

*I was inspired to up my ML game because I was fascinated by the kinds of cool projects people built around me.

*I was also encouraged to go to more hackathons with a lot more experience (and win!) like I do for MUN-- I realized there is this whole hacker community that I need to delve into 

*I am adaptable and can learn fast under pressure-- I learned what servers were the night before the hackathon and I was the whole server side...

*THAT SAID I want to learn more algorithms-- the general track winners based theirs off a Dijkstra algorithm which I thought was insanely cool.

*Demonstration sets you apart-- our project was innovative in its usage, implementation, and demonstration, making us stand out!

*How servers work and how fragile they really are 

What I enjoyed: 

*I got to be in the STATA and MEDIA buildings for a whole day each!!! The facility is amazing

*The MIT hack group is so excited about building it is infectious: they kept saying happy hacking like happy birthday. 

*I met so many cool people: my team was a mix of someone from Utah, from Massachusetts, and from New York. It was so interesting to meet hackers, coders, and builders from everywhere! Everyone in my team brought diverse skill sets 

*Seeing didi and having dinner with her (love spending time with my older sister)

*The merch and the food (WAS SO GOOD I HAVE TO COME BACK NEXT YEAR)...their hoodie was lowkey aesthetic

*Building nothole: very stressful but paid off

*The culture made me feel so at home : ) 

*Also winning.

All in all! What a great experience-- an unexpected but proud win on my first time dipping my feet into the water of hackathon life. I'm so excited for my next one!!





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