Bishop Ireton High School in Alexandria hosted its eighth annual Hackathon, Hack BI VIII, led by students for students Jan. 18-19.
The school’s annual hackathon started with a group of BI students who attended a nearby hackathon and wanted to host one themselves. It has continued every year since, even with the challenges of Covid.
In this 24-hour computer programming event, students learned valuable programming skills and worked to create projects centering around the theme “High Seas Hackathon!” This year, approximately 180 students from 14 high schools and 21 middle schools participated in the event. Dr. Whitney Mason, known for her leadership efforts at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, opened the day with her keynote presentation by emphasizing that “the biggest revolutions in technology are empowered by hardware” innovation.
Workshops featured Java, Python, Rust, video editing, circuitry and more; and a presentation on the future of AI from alumnus Steve Hawald. Attendees participated in ice breakers, team formation, workshops, “hacking” (otherwise known as coding), study break events, eating, more hacking, women in STEM panel, alumni panel, late-night Mass, dancing and singing with DJ Bob followed. Then, after either sleeping or hacking through the night, on Sunday morning projects were submitted and presented to the judges with a closing ceremony and prize winners announced.
Hack BI VIII saw many creative projects and provided an incredible environment for innovative ideas. “Having seen many iterations of Hack BI over the years, something I especially noticed this year was the way hackers (student attendees) encouraged and inspired one another,” said Gabrielle Baniqued, one of the two teacher moderators. “A few people came up with the idea of reusing leftover cardboard sandwich boxes in their final hardware project, and several teams followed suit in their own creative way.”
Hack BI also provided a wonderful chance for the students at Ireton to showcase their talents and take initiative. This particularly rings true for the student co-directors of the event, Michael Bobrowski (’25) and Nora Hixson (’25). Mary Briody, the other teacher moderator, said, “Bishop Ireton is so lucky to have student leaders in our computer science program like Nora and Michael who are not only talented but incredibly motivated, spending countless hours over the past year planning with other student leaders to execute this hallmark, marathon event. Hack BI VIII was truly great.”
This event was able to come together because of the teamwork demonstrated by Ireton students. “I would like to thank my fellow co-director Michael Bobrowski; my team leaders Ethan Miller, Mary Kate Costello, Alexa Charuhas, Jake Clark, and Rory McGuire; and all the Hack BI team members for dedicating their time and efforts on this project,” said Nora Hixson. “We could not have done it without you”.
Although a date has not been set, preparations have already started for Hack BI IX.
