At just 8 years old, Casey Hunt taught herself some basic web skills so she could help her father develop a website for his small business. As an adult, she developed software and managed data for a pharmaceutical company. But despite those experiences, she lacked confidence about her coding abilities, she said.

A turning point came when Hunt’s team won the 2020 , a hackathon at ŷ���ڱ���Ƶ Boulder’s ATLAS Institute aimed at promoting interest in creative technologies, coding, design and making among college women, nonbinary individuals and other groups that are underrepresented in technical fields. This year, the seventh annual “invention marathon” happens Feb. 18-19 at the ATLAS Institute. 

“I was undervaluing my skills because I didn’t know where I fell in the coding spectrum,” said Hunt, a Creative Technology and Design PhD student who builds web applications in the ATLAS THING Lab. “After winning T9, I was willing to take on more code-based projects;  before T9 I would not have had the confidence to say to my advisor that coding was part of my skill set.”

At the 2020 event, Hunt and her team worked through the night to develop “Brain Break,'' an award-winning project that periodically encourages those using Google Chrome to take breaks from the Internet by switching to healthy exercises or brain games. 

Who: Open to current college students and recent college graduates. Participants need not be ŷ���ڱ���Ƶ Boulder students or graduates to attend.

What: Seventh annual T9Hacks, a hackathon designed for women and traditionally underrepresented students, but open to everyone.  

When: Feb. 18, 4:30 p.m. – Feb. 19, 9 p.m.  

Where: University of ŷ���ڱ���Ƶ Boulder, Roser ATLAS Center, 1125 18th St.   
Cost: Free
 

Etc.:

Also, in an effort to have a greener event, organizers ask that participants bring a reusable water bottle. 

Additional ways to participate:

• Sign up to become a mentor and advise participants with their projects or teach workshops.
• Sign up to  before or during the event and be part of an extraordinary team of students.       

Today Hunt collaborates with University of Washington’s Kids Team to build applications for children to play with toy robots together over the Internet. Her PhD research also involves designing cozy, privacy-conscious, smart environments through a variety of techniques, including e-textiles, long-range RFID (radio frequency identification) and swarm robotics.  

In-person event
One of the last in-person events to take place before the lockdown, the 2020 T9Hacks was Hunt’s first hackathon. After last year’s virtual event, she’s looking forward to participating again in person when T9Hacks kicks off this year on February 18 at 4:30 p.m. Participants will be required to follow ŷ���ڱ���Ƶ Boulder's COVID-19 health policy. 
 
Beyond coding
Student organizers emphasize that no coding or other technical skills are required to participate in the 24-hour invention marathon and that everyone is welcome. The 2022 theme is “Go Beyond.” 

“As students with busy schedules, we often don’t take the time to explore,” says Océane Andréis, a second-year ATLAS graduate student (CTD-Social Impact), who along with Neha Kunapuli, a senior majoring in computer science, are again co-organizing this year’s event. “At T9, participants will go beyond the day-to-day grind. They will be intellectually challenged. They will learn new skills and will be supported by mentors.”

In 2016, T9Hacks was created to be a safe and welcoming environment for women and traditionally underrepresented students to learn, share and play with code.  “T9” refers to “Title IX,” an amendment to the Civil Rights Act prohibiting gender-based discrimination in education. At T9Hacks 2021, 66 hackers participated virtually; 74 percent were women and non-binary and 44 percent were first-time hackers. Previous in-person events brought in as many as 120 participants.

This year T9Hacks features four tracks: climate change, accessibility, empathy and education. 

The organizers encourage participants to meet new people, including event sponsors and mentors. New sponsors this year include ŷ���ڱ���Ƶ Boulder’s Cardinal Peak, Earnifi and Verily as well as T9 sponsor veterans Twitter, Tortuga AgTech and Wunderman Thompson. Aileen Pierce, teaching associate professor, is the faculty advisor. 

While attending the 2020 T9Hacks, Hunt met many sponsors, mentors and participants, and three of Hunt’s team members became part of her “pandemic bubble.”

“Having a community of women to study with throughout the pandemic contributed greatly to my academic success,” she said.

This year T9Hack’s Climate Change track is being sponsored by the , a donor-supported initiative to help ŷ���ڱ���Ƶ Boulder students work on climate solutions. The Mission Zero Fund works with many groups across campus on projects exploring carbon-zero living and sustainability.

“Students are the route to dealing with climate change, the ones who can make an impact on businesses and find solutions to this existential crisis,” says Scott King, founder of Mission Zero.

King says that Mission Zero Fund’s partnership with T9Hacks fits well because T9 not only offers an opportunity to mentor students around climate change, but it also supports an underserved population.

“An important part of the impacts of climate change is the inequities around climate justice,” King says. “Those without resources are impacted more significantly by climate and weather extremes and have less resources to deal with these events.”

Overall, all T9 participants are welcome to join the Climate Change track. Solutions can range from engineering to communications projects and anything in between, depending on the students’ strengths and passions.

“I don’t want students to feel like they are alone in this crisis,” King says. “There are mentors and business people who care deeply. Don’t look at climate change in a dark space. Together we can define what the future looks like.”

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New this year, ATLAS Institute’s T9Hacks is partnering with STEMblazers to host Au{t9}umn Hacks, an eight-hour hackathon specially designed to promote interest in creative technologies, coding, design and making among high school students who identify as female and non-binary. The event takes place Nov. 7 in at the Roser ATLAS building on the ŷ���ڱ���Ƶ Boulder campus.

The mini-hackathon is patterned after the institute’s highly successful, 36-hour T9Hacks, an invention marathon for college-age students. Traditionally women and nonbinary individuals often make up less than 25 percent of participants at mainstream hackathons; last year 74 percent of T9Hack’s participants were women and non-binary, and for 44 percent of the attendees, it was their first hackathon. 

“I wish I could have attended a hackathon in high school so I could have explored coding in a more fun and less rigid environment,” said Océane Andréis, a second-year ATLAS graduate student (CTD-Social Impact), who along with Neha Kunapuli, a senior majoring in computer science, are co-organizing the event. “I almost gave up, but through events like T9Hacks, I fell in love with coding in college.”

T9 references the Title IX federal civil rights law that was passed as part of the Education Amendments of 1972, prohibiting gender-based discrimination in education. Student organizers emphasize that no programming or other technical skills are required to participate in the free event, which includes workshops, meals, games and swag.

Who: Open to high school students
What: Au{t9}umn Hacks, a hackathon designed for individuals identifying as female or non-binary, and anyone belonging to a traditionally underrepresented group in tech, but open to everyone
When: Sunday, Nov. 7, 10 a.m. – 6 p.m. 
Where: Roser ATLAS Building, 1125 18th St., Boulder
Cost: FREE
Food: Provided

During Au{t9}umn Hacks, participants will choose one of two hour-long guided workshops–Pixel Art Animation or Web Development–intended to help kickstart their projects. Those taking the Pixel Art Animation workshop will learn how to create pixel art frames and use them for animation. In the Web Development workshop, participants will acquire website coding skills—HTML, CSS and Javascript. 

Students can work individually or in groups on goals such as creating a website from scratch, authoring a simple video game, creating an animation, a design-based project or some other novel creation. The all-day event will wrap up on Sunday evening with a closing ceremony and celebration.

STEMblazers, based in Highlands Ranch, ŷ���ڱ���Ƶ, inspires girls to visualize themselves in science, technology, engineering and math professions. 

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There’s a new option for ATLAS seniors enrolled in Capstone—a two-semester course sequence designed to put to work the wide spectrum of skills acquired during their undergraduate careers in the  engineering major.

In past years, students developed capstone projects based on their personal interests; now they may opt to work on a challenge posed by a sponsor. The goal is to give Creative Technology and Design undergraduates practical experience while letting industry benefit from their valuable skill sets.

It’s the latest addition to a popular undergraduate engineering major that has grown to 260 students since it was launched six years ago. 

“Industry-sponsored capstone projects are a great opportunity for students as well as sponsors,” says Aileen Pierce, associate director of ATLAS undergraduate programs. “Students work on real-world projects in a client-contractor relationship, and companies have the opportunity to work with creative engineering students exploring interesting and leading-edge creative technology projects.”

In a pilot program conducted during the fall 2020 and spring 2021 semesters, five sponsors successfully worked with 10 students. 

Virtual tools of the trade 
Monica Chairez, a first-generation college student who graduated from the CTD program in May, helped ŷ���ڱ���Ƶ Dental School of Medicine develop more effective remote teaching tools during the 2020-2021 school year. She created a digital tool library, along with 3D models of teeth to improve dental student skills training, something especially helpful for remote learning during the pandemic. 

“Working with the dental school was a great experience,” said Chairez, who used the open-source software program Blender to create the virtual 3D library. “It helped me understand what it would be like to work in this industry. I worked with different groups, so we needed good communication. I also learned a lot about the software. Overall, I loved this experience.”

Thomas Greany DDS, clinical assistant professor for ŷ���ڱ���Ƶ’s Dental School of Medicine, said students who can’t touch and feel the instruments in class can instead virtually tumble, rotate and zoom into these instruments just as if they were holding them.

“I manipulated the tools so they look realistic, and then I applied material to it, some color, so it looks metallic like the actual tools,” said Chairez, who was drawn to the opportunity because she has an interest in medicine.

Pure sweetness 
In another partnership, FlaVR Labs, a tech startup that uses virtual reality technology to intensify flavors of foods and drinks, sponsored two undergraduate CTD students’ capstone projects.

Max Kitay and Michael Morris (both BS-CTD’21) successfully developed capstone projects based on FlaVR’s technology, which uses tasting devices, such as spoons, plates and cups to deliver flavor through electrical stimulation. Professor Ellen Do, co-founder of FlaVR Lab and director of ATLAS Institute’s ACME Lab, and her co-founder, Nimesha Ranasinghe, an assistant professor in the School of Computing and Information Science at the University of Maine, and Darryl Kirsh, an investor/financial backer of FlaVR Labs, met virtually with the students every two weeks for a year to discuss project progress and tweak the progression of the products they were designing.

“We're happy with both students’ performances,” Do says. “It’s so nice to work with ATLAS capstone students. They are technically competent. They’re designers. They always come up with interesting ideas.”

“I really enjoyed working with both Max and Michael,” Ranasinghe added. “We had exciting discussions about the human perception of food and flavors and how to incorporate design and technology to augment human perception that encourages people to eat right. Both students are good designers with a ‘Let's get the job done’ attitude. They not only produced designs for us, but they also did background research to gain a better understanding of what we are designing.” 

Kitay’s capstone project, the, encourages water consumption by making plain water taste like a flavored beverage, without the addition of chemicals, sweeteners, aromas or colors. Taste enhancement occurs digitally via a combination of electrode stimulation of the tongue, concentrated aroma release and color change of the liquid through LEDs–all tricking a person’s brain to believe they are drinking something other than water. 

“The most rewarding aspect was gaining insight/feedback from professionals and getting to work alongside such interesting and intelligent people,” Kitay said.

Kirsch, of FLaVR Labs, said he was impressed with Kitay’s ability to design and deliver the project during the pandemic.

“Max really made some important design and functional contributions to a long-time project of ours,” Kirsh said. “The fact that he was able to design, produce and test during Covid and only connect with the FlaVR team digitally, is a real tribute to his ingenuity and skills.”

Morris’ project, the , also called “EATcosystem, encourages children who don’t eat enough calories to increase their food intake through a reward system where stars shaped by LED lights embedded in a plate light up each time food is eaten from the plate. 

In 2020, FlaVR received a $50,000 grant from the National Science Foundation's Innovation Corps. The company’s founders are writing proposals to the National Institute of Health (NIH) and the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) to fund EATcosystem, which includes a plate, bowl and spoon that tracks people’s eating habits. Possible uses of the project include monitoring people’s eating habits, such as the speed at which they eat, or measuring the weight of food consumed. 

“Michael’s work really helped us progress to a stage where we clearly see a commercial path for EATco,” says Kirsh. “He took a project that we really wouldn’t have had time to pursue and pushed it to a priority.”

With  from Debra Melani.

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Typically held at the ATLAS Institute for 24 hours, this year’s hackathon had a virtual format and was extended to 36 hours. Participants from all over the United States and world took part in the event, with 25 institutions represented, including high schools, colleges and universities. Those partcipating came from diverse backgrounds spanning 34 different majors.

"The online format was a challenge especially for those with a huge time difference (from Mountain Daylight Time), but because of the online format we were able to meet people from different countries," said Océane Andréis, a first-year ATLAS graduate student (CTD-Social Impact) who co-organized the event with Neha Kunapuli, a junior majoring in computer science. "Being able to come together as creators and inventors with different backgrounds was really amazing."

T9Hacks promotes interest in creative technologies, coding, design and making, among college women, non-binary individuals, people of color, those with disabilities and others who are typically underrepresented during hackathons. Student organizers emphasize that no coding or other technical skills are required to participate in the "invention marathon," and that everyone is welcome.

Overall, 72 percent of T9Hacks' 2021 participants identified as female, and half were first-time hackathon participants. 

ATLAS faculty, students and alumni were heavily involved in planning and running the event. Thirteen  were submitted and nine winners selected by a panel of judges that included ATLAS faculty members Ellen Do, Sheiva Rezvani, Shaz Zamore, Justin Gitlin and Aileen Pierce; TAM alumnae Cassandra Goodby, Keren Megory-Cohen and Elsa Roeber; and Julia Uhr, PhD student, Aubrey Shick, ATLAS research affiliate, and Anna Cook, TAM alumna and MS-CTD student. Mentors included Matt Dickey, TAM and CTD MS alumus; Ari Klebanov, TAM alumus and engineer at ToolCASE, LLC and Chris Klette, ToolCASE, LLC engineer.

During the event, Matt Dickey conducted a web development workshop. Assistant Professor Daniel Leithinger and PhD Student Julia Uhr gave a virtual reality/augmented reality  (VR/AR) workshop and Annie Margaret, ATLAS instructor, led the participants in meditation.

In addition, a team of ATLAS students, including graduate students Sam Herwig and Emma Petersen (both CTD-Creative Industries) and Fiona Bell, PhD student, won the humanitarian award for their project, "The Disaster Displacement Database."

The organizers would like to extend a big thank you to the event sponsors, including the ATLAS Institute, Trimble, Tortuga AgTech, SparkFun Electronics, ToolCASE, LLC, and echoAR, as well as our partner, InVision.

Outstanding Social Impact -  by Mahzabin Rashid Fariha and Humayra Rashid Safa

Outstanding Humanitarian - The Disaster Displacement Database by Fiona Bell, Sam Herwig, and Emma Petersen

Outstanding Maker -  by Sahana Gokulakrishnan

Outstanding Entrepreneur -  by Ann Marie, Gwen, Spencer, and Charlotte

Outstanding Developer -  by Allison Palmer, Jenna Rothe, James Ryan, and Emma Wenzel

EchoAR Award -  by Ahelee Bhattacharya

Fans’ Choice -  by Audrey Viland, Spencer Bajcar, and Greg Gassen

Rookie Award -  by Minso Kim and Catherine Xiao

Outstanding Artist -  by Linh Nguyen & Dan Líu

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Aileen Pierce, TAM associate director, senior instructor with ŷ���ڱ���Ƶ engineering and a member of ATLAS faculty since 2004, recently returned from Rwanda, where she taught an advanced mobile application development course at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) Africa in Kigali, Rwanda.

Pierce also teaches mobile application development courses for the Technology, Arts & Media program, as well as web and front-end development courses.  During the spring 2020 semester, she took a teaching sabbatical to participate in CMU Africa's engineering master's programs.

In the interview that follows, Pierce describes her eight-week teaching experience and shares her impressions of a country poised to become a center on the continent for technology, innovation and tourism, while continuing to heal from the 1994 genocide, when more than 800,000 people lost their lives.  

How did the opportunity to teach at CMU Africa come about?
I knew two CMU Africa faculty members from ŷ���ڱ���Ƶ Boulder, from the days when one of my courses was cross-listed with the Interdisciplinary Telecom Program (now the Technology, Cybersecurity and Policy program), and one of my husband’s business partners taught several semesters at CMU Africa. So, the opportunity arose through those connections. My husband also taught at CMU Africa during the mini semester.

What was the content of your class?
The class focused on Android app development, utilizing an Agile software development methodology. Originally my class of seven students included only one woman, but I recruited another, making eight students total.

Were your students primarily from Rwanda?
Fifty percent of my students were from Rwanda; the rest were from other African countries.

Did your students have the background they needed to succeed in your course?
CMU Africa is the best master’s program for electrical and computer engineering and IT in the entire continent of Africa. The students were highly motivated and worked extremely hard. If they weren’t familiar with a topic, they put in the work to learn it. 

Internet access throughout Africa varies. What was your experience? 
CMU Africa has excellent Internet access in terms of speed and reliability. Students relied on the university’s Internet access and were often on campus seven days per week as many do not have Internet access at home. Other places in Kigali were hit or miss, including at the apartment I rented. There were many times the speed slowed to a crawl, or went down completely, and there were occasional power outages as well. Throughout Rwanda, Internet penetration is only a little over 50 percent and smartphone usage is under 20 percent. Hopefully efforts such as Mara phones, the first smartphones engineered and manufactured in Rwanda, along with a continued focus on providing affordable access will help bring access and opportunities to more of Rwanda’s population.

What did your students say they wanted to do after graduating? 
Students are concerned about getting jobs after graduating, but they’re also focused on how their work will help Rwanda and other African countries. The students see themselves as Africa’s future leaders. Americans often think that everyone’s goal is to come to the U.S., but the majority of students I interacted with really wanted to give back to their countries.

What surprised you about Rwanda? 
Kigali is the cleanest city I’ve ever been to in terms of litter — there wasn’t any, thanks to workers who keep the city clean. I also thought I might feel nervous walking around a city where police carry machine guns, but I felt very safe. There’s also a plethora of excellent restaurants in Rwanda, and I enjoyed a wide range of cuisines. One of my favorites was a Ugandan dish called a “rolex,” an egg and vegetable combination wrapped in a chapati.

The country has one national language, Kinyarwanda, which is an advantage. Uganda has more than 50 tribes and 39 languages, which makes spoken communication more difficult, affects education and the arts, and makes it harder to build a cohesive country.

Did you get a sense that Rwanda is growing economically?
The progress made in the 25 years since the Rwandan genocide is amazing and speaks to the Rwandan people’s resilience, motivation and willingness to work towards a brighter future. There’s a focus on making Rwanda a leading country in East Africa. A new convention center is being built, along with a new airport. There are many world-class hotels and a golf course. These amenities are enabling Rwanda to host international events and conferences and, along with a university like Carnegie Mellon, position Rwanda as a center for technology, innovation, and tourism in the continent. However, 39 percent of Rwanda’s population still live on under $2 per day and you can’t drink the tap water anywhere, so there’s clearly more that needs to be done. With Rwanda’s young, motivated population, I’m optimistic about the country’s future. 

Where did you travel/visit in Africa while you were there? 
I travelled to Lake Kivu on the border between the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda and saw the golden monkeys in Volcanoes National Park Rwanda. I also did a gorilla trek in Uganda’s Bwindi Impenetrable Forest National Park. And at the end of the semester I went on a five-day safari in Tanzania in the Serengeti National Park. I also spent three days in Cape Town, South Africa, before heading home.

How much awareness and concern was there about the coronavirus in Rwanda before you left? Were you prepared for the situation here?
While teaching at CMU Africa, the coronavirus was in China and then Italy, but it hadn’t reached the U.S. or Africa. During my two weeks of travel afterwards, universities started sending students home and switching to remote classes. Africa has more experience with viruses, having dealt with Ebola and others, and it started health screening at airports before there were any reported cases. Once the country started reporting positive cases, they moved quickly to shut down schools and restaurants. I decided to return to the U.S. early with my family; we left Africa on March 18 and arrived in ŷ���ڱ���Ƶ on March 20. DIA and Logan airports were emptier than I’ve ever seen at a U.S. airport, and I was surprised there were no health screenings at Logan or DIA airports. 

So you arrived back just days, before the stay-at-home order?
Yes, it made our return quite strange. I was looking forward to reconnecting with ATLAS faculty and students when I returned, but for now that is all being done online. 

Do you anticipate going back in the future to teach or travel?
Yes. I’d love to go back and teach again at CMU Africa and to spend more time traveling around Africa. Getting to live in and interact with people in another culture really drives home that, as different as things may appear, we really have more in common than we have differences. The time I spent in Rwanda really broadened my world view, and I highly encourage others to do the same if they have the opportunity.

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Despite a significant snowstorm, organizers of an ATLAS student-run hackathon, T9Hacks, once again reached their goals of increasing participants and attracting a majority of women to the creative coding marathon.

Led by ATLAS doctoral student Brittany Kos, this year's T9Hacks drew more than 130 participants, 70 percent of them female and non-binary, with 65 percent of the participants first-time hackers. In 2017, 110 people attended, with 60 percent of participants women/nonbinary.

The 24-hour event, which began Feb. 10, is geared toward college students and recent college grads, especially women, non-binary and transgender students—the “T9” stands for “Title IX,” a U.S. amendment that prohibits gender-based discrimination in educational settings.  In general, Hackathons—marathon creative coding and making events—are mostly attended by men, with female-to-male ratios often as low as 1 to 15.

For some, T9Hacks was an opportunity to attend their first hackathon, for others, it was a chance to venture out and try new technology for the first time. Teams of participants completed projects in three areas; cybersecurity, creative tech and tech for social impact. Workshops were available for beginners and mentors were available throughout to consult and support participants.

Working in teams, participants programmed and built creative software projects ranging from Happy Ivy, an app that encourages people with bipolar disorder to finish their tasks, to PeekPeak, an app that helps users save money by reducing utility usage during peak periods.

This year's winners and project descriptions can be found on , with special recognition from T9Hack's organizers for these projects: , by Tatiana Blanco and Vi Nguyen, an autonomous aquaponics system which allows users to grow food with a minimum amount of effort and cost;  by Carl Cortright and Shubha Swamy, a data visualization tool that maps crime locations within Boulder; and  by Cassandra Goodby and Ryan Craig, an emergency WIFI system that can be set up quickly and easily.

In addition to lead sponsorship from ATLAS, the event received major support from Workday, Zayo Group, Google, SketchUp and  MD5. Circadence, Major League Hacking, ŷ���ڱ���Ƶ Boulder's College of Engineering and Applied Science, TechChange and the National Center for Women & Information Technology also provided sponsorship.

For those who missed T9Hacks and those attendees who didn't get enough, don't despair; T9Hacks happens again next fall. Those interested in joining the planning team should visit the . 

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Geared particularly for women, the all-night event aims to attract newcomers to computer programming by providing a fun, lively and accessible hackathon. It's also a chance for participants to explore new ideas, experiment and collaborate, while racing to address a variety of challenges.

T9Hacks is geared toward college students and recent college grads, especially women, non-binary, and transgender students—the “T9” stands for “Title IX,” a U.S. amendment that prohibits gender-based discrimination in education.

New this year: The 2018 hackathon will offer three tracks—Creative Technology, Humanitarian Technology, and Cybersecurity—with workshops and design challenges that introduce students to the topics, teach them a variety of relevant tools and help them navigate complexities and build solutions.

ATLAS PhD student Brittany Kos, who created the event and has organized it for the last three years, intends that T9Hacks provides students with an opportunity to explore possibilities, get started on a project they may have had in the back of their minds, or create a solution to a problem they encountered. 

It’s also a chance to dive into a whole new subculture of hackers and makers. There will be workshops for beginners at the beginning of the hackathon and mentors are available throughout to consult and provide support.” 

"No prior programming experience is required,” Kos says.

For more information including a detailed schedule, .

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A 24-hour invention marathon of sorts, participants will have the opportunity to try out new ideas and collaborate in a fun environment while racing to create the next great software project. 

T9Hacks is geared toward college students and recent college grads, especially women—the “T” stands for “Title IX.” Men can attend, too; but in Sadie Hawkins fashion, they need to be invited by a woman. Women, non-binary and/or trans individuals can register by themselves or with a team and may invite one other male teammate.

Explore the possibilities. Get started on a project you’ve had in the back of your mind. Create a solution to a problem you see often. Build something you never have before.

And for those who have never written a line of code: This event is especially for you. No prior programming experience is required; mentors will guide you through the process.

Participants need not be ŷ���ڱ���Ƶ Boulder students to attend T9Hacks, but registration is required. The event is completely free, and food will be provided.

For more information, including a detailed schedule, .

Who: Open to the public
What: T9Hacks, female hackathon
When: Saturday, Feb. 25, 9:30 a.m., through Sunday, Feb. 26, 3:30 p.m.
Where: ATLAS Institute, Black Box Experimental Studio
Cost: FREE
Registration: Required

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