We found out at the AWSxNorthumbria Hackathon
Earlier this month the RE:PLAY project, in collaboration with Northumbria University, Leighton, and AWS North, hosted the first AWSxNorthumbria Hackathon. We set the theme – students were to create a playful learning activity that could teach others about AWS services – and the students delivered. The day began with an introduction to AWS services from Matheus Guimaraes, followed by the theme reveal, then development time. At the end of the day was the project showcase; where each team would present their developed software/activity to the judging panel.
The judging panel (Anna Carter, Jo Larby, and Matheus Guimaraes) and organisation team all agreed that we were super impressed with the work the students produced in the (<6 hour) timescale. We saw examples of playfulness, gamification, and digital worlds in the students designs, and the results are as follows.
🥇In first place were Claude Enjoyers, with a game that let you explore AWS services in a game-based environment.
🏆 Winning the AWS Choice Award (given to the team that made the best use of AWS services during the hackathon) 🥁 was AWS City. Their design, showing how agents interacted in systems won over the judging panel and their use of AWS services in the development of their design was excellent.
🥈 In second place Team Winners! (they could choose their own names – and were rightly optimistic). The team that was the most defensive of their idea (not telling any organisers until the final showcase), their playful activity incorporated duelling avatars and answering questions to empower learners with new AWS knowledge.
🥉And in third place with an app that tracks your engagement to ensure you learn, Team AWSome.
Overall it was a fantastic day, and we would like to thank the organising team, and the student attendees, for coming along.
You can read more about the projects here
An app that ensures you learn
Team AWSome designed an application that checked whether a learner was actually paying attention, employing strategies similar to what we see on scrolling social media platforms – the longer you spend watching a video the more attention you are likely paying to it.
Explore their design further here.
A mix-and-match quiz
Team Cloud City created Cloud City rescue, exploring how cloud technologies could help in an urban environment. From saving school files, to fixing street lights, you are guided through a mix and match game to unpick how AWS services are used in the real world.
A duel to test your knowledge
Team Winners! created Question Duel, a game that brought together quizzing and dueling – you could only answer the next question if you won the duel. This was an engageing game that won them second place.
Explore their design further here.
What quiz isn’t complete without danging people and UFOs??
Team dancing women + man created a super engaging quiz with dancing characters, encouraging the players to keep going.
A game to explore what AWS has to offer
Earning them first place, Team Claude Enjoyers created a game where you could explore what AWS services had to offer. Complete with an isometric view space, with lives, tickets and sounds – this game was a really engaging way to learn about AWS services.
Ain’t no party like a AWS party
Team Amacide created our multiplayer game of the day – with a party style quiz game that hackathon attendees could play together. The questions were timed, and the game allowed for a QR-style registration, allowing anyone with a camera-enabled device to play the game.
Explore their project further here.
Don’t know what tech you need to start your company?
Team 3Players have you covered. Wtih an interactive game and a competitive leaderboard; their game explored which AWS services are suitable for a start-up.
And finally, who doesn’t love a wordle?
Team Team created a wordle style game that asked you questions relating to AWS services, giving you how many letters the answer would be. You could then in wordle style guess the answer to the question, with the interface showing whether you had guessed the correct letter, or the correct letter in the correct space.
Who wants to be a(n AWS) Millionaire?
Team Clarkson’s Farm created an AWS-themed version of the well-known game who wants to be a millionaire, scaling in difficulty, their questions explored the uses of amazon’s web services.
