A group of MICDS students won third place at the World Wide Technology (WWT) Hackathon!
The team’s iOS app, navigatAR, provides navigation inside buildings using augmented reality. The team reached out to local high schools and universities to explore the need for the product and the feedback they received reinforced their belief that navigatAR solved a real-world problem. After experimenting with different technologies and services, they settled on developing a native iOS app with Swift using Apples ARKit and a service called Indoor Atlas.
For the competition, they mapped the MICDS STEM building and the new WWT headquarters. The live demo wow’ed professional developers, their peers from other schools and WWT executives.
“It was a blast working with our teacher sponsors, Mrs. Purdy and Mr. Borja, our WWT mentors, and my fellow classmates on this project over the past six weeks. We got to expand our horizons, and I was able to work with people I didn’t normally work with,” said Michael Gira ’19. “It was a huge learning experience using all of these pillars of technology–augmented reality, indoor positioning by mapping out electromagnetic waves–and making them all work together while simultaneously learning a new programming language, Swift.”
“What makes this team really special is that each one of us is so self-motivated and passionate towards a common cause. In less than 6 weeks, we were able to learn a brand new programming language and finish everything we have planned,” Jack Cai ’19 added. “A big thanks to Mrs. Purdy, Mr. Borja and WWT mentors!”
Who made up this awesome team? Here’s the roster:
- Tanay Chandak ’20
- Nick Clifford ’20
- Alex Migala ’20
- Jack Petersen ’20
- Jack Cai ’19
- Michael Gira ’19
- Sophia Puertas ’19
- Andrew Zhao ’19
- Alex Donovan ’18