React Native Hackathon 2016

Last weekend we hosted the very first hackathon at Callstack! Thanks to everyone for coming. It’s been good to see you exploring React at our office!

Let’s refresh our memories and take overall look at what we managed to achieve.

In general we focused on making everyday life in office easier thanks to mobile apps (of course created using React Native) and some external devices.

What we could use was:

• Raspberry Pi
• two sensors connected with it (move and light)
• API which provides needed information to use them
• beacons
• QR codes placed on rooms and not only ;)

Of course we encouraged everyone to suggest their own solutions, APIs and tools so that it’s not only about having fun with React Native, but also learning from each other’s experience.

The main problems to solve where:

• checking availability of parking spaces before arriving to office
• reminding teammates that they are Garbage Monster’s (take out the garbage schedule)
• queuing, rating and streaming music to play in the office
• booking conference rooms
• new colleagues on-boarding

We’ve created 3 teams which were leaded by our developers: Ferran, Radek, Piotrek and Wojtek. Many thanks to you guys!

Everybody had about 7 hours and one goal — come up with something fresh! At the same time our goal was to provide fuel (pizza, beer and caffeine).

Let’s see what they came up with.

The Ferran’s Team

https://github.com/callstack-io/callstack-hackathon-team-dratwa-wojtek

We’ve decided to solve our problem with taking out the garbage schedule. Using a QR code placed on the trash bin we’ve managed to pull informations about current schedule into the app. Moreover, we used a beacon device to map its id with the current garbage responsible so we can scan and then ping that “Garbage Monster” on Slack.

The Radek’s Team

https://github.com/callstack-io/callstack-hackathon-team-radek

We decided to solve more than one problem form list. We’ve prepared streaming music and queuing it using raspberry pi to avoid argues who will be DJ today ;P. Moreover we used beacons which allow you to check where the nearest toilet is. And that was not enough for us — another feature in their app allows you to check if the parking space is free before we will arrive to office — thanks to move sensors connected with raspberry.

The Piotrek’s and Wojtek’s Team

https://github.com/callstack-io/callstack-hackathon-team-dratwa-wojtek

Our team also decided to solve garbage problem. We’ve prepared application contains handy calendar using data provided from QR code on trash bin.

Great work everyone!

The only problem was that we had to choose a winner. If it would be possible we would give you all the 1st place but only one team could win.

After very very long consultations we finally agreed that we’ve fallen in love with Ferran’s team idea (even though everyone was 1st class). See it in the wild:

Congrats for the hackathon winners!

Thank you everyone for having such a great time! We hope to see you soon!