What a year. What a hack.
I wish you knew how difficult the past 4 months were for me, and how much this moment meant for me.
This is the first big smile I had in 2024.
Every year, I come to Reality Hack, Inc. (co-organizers of MIT Reality Hack) as an expert matter for spatial audio and interactive sound design. I made a giant post right before the hack announcing that I would be a mentor and a judge. I shared my inspirational story of how I got into audio in XR, hoping to encourage others to do the same, and take positive risks that might change their lives to the better.
Prior to the hack, I prepared 50 pages in Notion with different resources and information for hackers about sound files, audio tips, spatializer plugins, links, tutorials and much more, to get the hackers going and help even more people than any other year, so they have something to refer to in case Im not available.
In the last minute, Ash Shah, Colleen Sinclair
Michael Markman and Crimson Wheeler snatched me from my role, and convinced me to get back from "retirement" and join the hack. I haven't participated in the hackathon since 2018. It was very clear I couldn't keep serving as a judge, but I still want to help people. I prepared so much! My team heard it, and understood that in order to win - we need to think of a simple but really fun idea, something we would all enjoy working on. While they worked on the core mechanics and network - I went around tables helping people set their audio managers in the Unity and import a spatializer plugins so they're app would sound great.
The biggest challenge when building Bounce Ball, was actually not the mechanics, but the game idea. We bounced ideas (hehe) around and kept arguing over what the goal of the game should be. Michael really wanted it to be a competitive game, I wanted it to be a collaboration.
"But the theme of the hack is CONNECTION! What's connecting about a competition??"
"Shirly, look where we are. Healthy competition brings people together. This is why humans invented the Olympic games. Its in our spirit."
He was right. Healthy competition can bring the best in us, and connect us in ways I forgot even exist.
Thank you team, for pushing me to create, and for a killer job on this awesome app. You can't build something like this in 2 days without a killer dream team. You guys rock!
Thank you to the Reality Hack organizers for supporting me, 7 years in a row. Thank you for letting me inspire others, and for reminding me that good still exist in the world, and that even through our deep pain and depression we can come out and do something great.
#MITrealityhack2024
#HackToTheFuture
#MoreThanHack
#augmentedreality #metaquest
President and CTO | Ex-Bank of America
1 周It was an awesome night to connect and kickoff #CMITConnectLive