Hack Princeton 2018

The Journey to build Konnex Jacket has been intense...

The idea for the jacket first came to me years ago after Google Glass failed to build a reliable product. I was trying to think of reasons why they failed and realized it was because people don't like to walk around with things on their faces. The idea for a wearable product like a jacket was more appealing. After an initial survey and feedback from others from the idea I decided to pursue it.

I was suppose to be a a mentor at technica the worlds largest woman hack-a-thon but due to a large sign-up of mentors my role was canceled! So I decided to go Hack Princeton at the last moment. I'm glad I did....

I took a uber to union station, 5 hr bus ride and it was around 10pm when I arrived at Princeton. I was paired with a Princeton University student, David Booth, who was a genius electrical engineer and also a great programmer. While we were discussing ideas in the lobby, our other team-mate Khai Nguyen (Temple University) walked by and joined us. We had our team and we were off to the races!

(Left to right )

Myself, David and Khai

We decided to pair our jacket to a social good cause to help visually impaired and blind people navigate their surroundings using facial recognition and google voice.

The hack-a-thon was a 36 hour event so we took some time to explore and check out the sponsor tables and grab dinner at midnight.

Later that night I went to Davids dorm and we chatted about our project and we played Virtual reality games on his HTC Vive headset which was great fun. David used to run his own virtual reality business and rent our the headsets and staff events in a local town, so he was an expert.

Of course Facebook was there as one of the sponsors. We learned so much at this event in such a short period of time. I learned how to program and use the raspberry pi, learn OpenCV technology and work well in teams. We stopped by the food area afterwards to grab a bit to eat. It was packed at midnight! There were so many people there that they eventually ran out of plates and one of my freinds had to use a cover as their plate.

The food was great, they had a real dinner with sandwiches hummus, salads and plenty of drinks. They did a great job at organizing and Princeton deserves credit from MLH for putting together a well-organized hackathon.

One of my freinds, Anthony Lawlor, had to use a lid for his plate because they ran out of plates! ( they never ran out of food though!) After we feasted we headed downstairs to the electrical engineering lab and we picked up all the items we thought we would use for the the hackathon. Thanks to the MLH team we had every part we could think of (We return everything at the end)

The Electrical Engineering Lab at Princeton University in the basement of the Engineering building.

The entrance to the lab where my team and stayed for the weekend hacking. It was actually a very comfortable lab to work in compared to other labs I have worked in throughout my career.

Some of the various items we checked out are at no-cost during the hack-a-thon. One of the reasons to participate and attend a hack-a-thon is because they provide you with resources and opportunities to learn that you would not find in school or elsewhere.

Some of the most important parts of the Konnex Jacket was 1. Raspberry Pi B3+

2. Camera used for facial recognition

3. And a 3.5 inch touch-screen display so the user can see the software working in real-time.

We even checked out an Oculus Rift headset ($400) even though we didn't need to but we thought it was cool ;)

I also met Brendan Iribe twice at Bitcamp so any products he makes I like ;) He is a great person and a innovative individual. Mark Zuckerberg bought Oculus for $3billion in 2014. He recently donated to the University of Maryland and built the Iribe center for UMD students.

After we checked out the parts we got to work and started programming. We downloaded the Operating System, Raspbian and the facial recognition software library and used this tutorial to do so.

It was a remarkable project and our team worked well together too build it. We did want to give-up until it was completed. We were hacking with other teams until 8am in the morning!

After hours and hours of working and crazy events that I don't even want to describe or remember, we finally made a breakthrough and got the software to work the day of the competition at 8am Sunday!

Afterwards I had to pick up a few items from Davids dorm before the competition and he let me borrow his dads old vintage 1970's bike! It was still dark and cold outside and we decided to shoot a video with the entire jacket working in low-light mode.

The jacket performed well and I was able to capture some night-time photos of the campus in "low-light" mode

Image captured from Konnex Jacket night in " Low-light" mode. Princeton university has a gorgeous campus and I loved the feel and vibe there. Possible grad school ;)

Afterwards we got ready for the judging and competition. We set up our table and booth at Freinds Center and both Khai and I demoed the Jacket for the world to see :)

Now Khais Turn.

Khais video with added visual effects and audio :)

After the judging we were nominated for BEST TEAMWORK and BEST DESIGN at Hack Princeton out of 600 other developers! We were grateful for the nomination.

After we competed we gathered at the computer science building and watched the winners and had a blast!

David Booth treated us to a farewell dinner at WU dining hall and we said our goodbyes. This is just the beginning for us and there are many more hack-a-thons coming up! Next I will be at Yhacks at Yale University building our blockchain and points/ranking system for Konnex and then Make Harvard next year. For more news check out www.konnex.co and follow our exciting journey to be the largest, most successful and innovative technology company in the world!

-Auran Shereef

Founder & President Konnex