(Japanese follows. 日本語は英語の後にあります。) AnimalHack 2023 Sarasa Ouchi About In September 2023, AnimalHack, an inaugural international hackathon initiated by devoted student volunteers from NECIA, kicked off with a Zoom meeting. Central to this collaborative effort is an exploration of the relationship between animals and humans, encompassing pets, service animals, farm animals, and wildlife. Leading this pioneering initiative are six organizers: Yuma Karube and Sarasa Ouchi, who serve as Co-chairs, supported by a team including Yua Murakami, Banri Ouchi, Hanna Suzuki, and Sougou Tojima. Preparation Over the course of approximately three months, meticulous preparations were undertaken for the hackathon, encompassing a multifaceted array of tasks. These included conceptualizing an engaging event name, crafting a visually captivating logo—expertly designed by Sougou Tojima—as well as producing custom merchandise featuring the logo. Concurrently, groundwork was laid for a seamless virtual experience, with the creation of a DevPost page and a Discord server to facilitate smooth communication among participants. Additionally, an online registration platform was made for presentation submissions, while a thorough search for judges ensured impartial adjudication of entries. Finally, certificates were meticulously designed and issued, serving as a testament to the dedication and achievement of all involved. Event The hackathon boasted a turnout of 263 participants, resulting in the submission of 29 projects via DevPost. From these, 11 projects that met the entry requirements earned the opportunity to present at the hackathon event. Participants from four countries—India, the US, Canada, and Nigeria— were convened at the Zoom meeting, setting the stage for a truly global collaboration. The event kicked off with a warm welcome from the co-chairs, followed by introductions of the organizing committee, an overview of the hackathon schedule, details about the upcoming publication of a commemorative book, and a display of AnimalHack merchandise. Following this, attention shifted to the presentations, where each participant was allotted a 10-minute slot to pitch their projects to a panel of judges and fellow participants. Engaging with insightful comments and probing questions, the audience contributed to a dynamic exchange of ideas. The panel of judges comprised Ms. Eriko Nishimoto from Binnovative and Ms. Namaswi Chandarana from an external entity. Following the completion of all presentations, the judges meticulously deliberated and unveiled their selections, culminating in the eagerly awaited announcement of the results. The award-winning projects are as follows: 1st Place “Hydrate Cat” by Yuma Karube 2nd Place “Squirrel repeller” by Shun Nagata and Rei Nagata 3rd Place “Pet Picker – A Simple Approach to Finding Your Perfect Pet” by Soham Vij Honorable Mentions “Motorized scarecrow with infrared laser detection system and camera” by Shuntaro Sato “Cloud-assisted Electronic Deer Repeller” by Hanna Suzuki “pawprint” by Tyo An Excellence in Creativity Award “Petupia” by Zana Yan Emerging Talent Award “Virtual Pet Adoption Center” by Dharshini Venkatesan The awarded projects were published and celebrated on the DevPost page, while personalized certificates of achievement were promptly dispatched to the winners. Publication Following the event, organizers reached out to the winners, asking their interest in contributing to a comprehensive book encapsulating the essence of their projects. Upon receiving affirmative responses, the resultant was divided into four captivating chapters: “Hydrate Cat” by Yuma Karube “Squirrel Repeller” by Shun Nagata and Rei Nagata “Pet Picker – A Simple Approach to Finding Your Perfect Pet” by Soham Vij “Cloud-assisted Electronic Deer Repeller” by Hanna Suzuki The editorial reins were handled by Yuma Karube, Banri Ouchi, and Sarasa Ouchi, while the visually striking cover was conceptualized by Banri Ouchi. This book, titled “Unleashing Technology Innovations for Positive Human-Animal Relationships: Tales from AnimalHack,” which encompasses the aforementioned chapters, is currently available on Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing. (日本語) AnimalHack 2023 主催レポート 大内更紗 2023年9月、NECIAの学生有志が立ち上げた国際ハッカソンAnimalHackの記念すべき第1回目がZoom meetingの形式にて開催されました。本ハッカソンはペット、介助動物、農耕動物、野生動物などあらゆる動物と人間の関係性をテーマにしたもので、動物に焦点を当てた国際的でオープンなハッカソンがないことから創設されたものです。オーガナイザーは以下の6人です。 輕部結真（運営委員長） 村上結愛 大内絆吏 大内更紗（運営委員長） 鈴木帆奈 戸島壮剛 準備内容 ハッカソン開催にあたり、以下の準備が約3ヶ月に渡って行われました。 ハッカソンの名前決め ロゴの作成（デザイン：戸島壮剛さん） ロゴを使用したグッズの作成 参加者募集用にDevPostのページの立ち上げ 参加者とのコミュニケーション用にDiscordを開設 プレゼンテーションのためのオンライン登録ページの作成 審査員探し 賞状(Certificate)の作成 開催 DevPostでは263名の参加者、29件のプロジェクトの応募がありました。そのうちの出場要件を満たした11件をハッカソンイベントでのプロジェクトプレゼンテーションに招待し、インド、アメリカ、カナダとナイジェリアの4カ国から参加者がZoom meetingに集まりました。当日は運営委員長の2人の歓迎の言葉からキックオフし、、オーガナイザーの紹介、ハッカソンの進行予定の説明、本出版の案内、AnimalHackのグッズ宣伝を終えて各参加者からの発表に移りました。参加者は審査員や他の参加者の前でそれぞれ10分間のプレゼンテーションを行い、審査員からコメントや質問を受けました。審査員はBinnovativeから西本会里子さん、外部からNamaswi Chandaranaさんにお願いしました。全てのプロジェクトの発表が終了した後、審査員が選考を行い、本イベントは結果発表にて締めくくられました。受賞作品は以下の通りです。 1st Place 輕部結真さん作 “Hydrate Cat” 2nd Place 永田舜さん 永田怜さん作 “Squirrel repeller” 3rd Place Soham Vijさん作 “Pet Picker – A Simple Approach to Finding Your Perfect Pet” Honorable Mentions 佐藤俊太郎さん作 “Motorized scarecrow with infrared laser detection system and camera” 鈴木帆奈さん作 “Cloud-assisted Electronic Deer Repeller” Tyo Anさん作 “pawprint” Excellence in Creativity Award Zana Yanさん作 “Petupia” Emerging Talent Award Dharshini Venkatesanさん作 “Virtual Pet Adoption Center” 受賞者には作成したCertificateを送付し、Project galleryと上述の受賞者をDevpost pageで公表しました。 本の出版 イベントが終了した後、それぞれの受賞者にプロジェクトをまとめた本に寄稿することに興味があるかについてのコンタクトが行われました。彼らの返事を受けて、計4つの章 (輕部結真さん作 “Hydrate Cat” / 永田舜さん 永田怜さん作 “Squirrel repeller” / Soham Vijさん作 “Pet Picker – A Simple Approach to Finding Your Perfect Pet” / 鈴木帆奈さん作 “Cloud-assisted Electronic Deer Repeller”)から成る本が作成されることになりました。本のタイトルは編集者全員で決められ、本の表紙を大内絆吏、編集を輕部結真、大内絆吏、大内更紗の3人が担当しました。上述の4章が収録された本 “Unleashing Technology Innovations for Positive Human-animal Relationships: Tales from AnimalHack” は、現在 Amazon Kindle Direct Publishingから出版されています。
NASA International Space Apps Challenge Boston 2023 – We did it!
Congratulations to all participants of the NASA International Space Apps Challenge Boston 2023. We are proud to have hosted our 10th annual hackathon with the past three years being in a virtual setting on 10/7,8. Thanks to the virtual setting this year, 135 people registered from the Greater Boston area and beyond and 13 teams successfully completed projects. The event was officiated by the Consulate General of Japan in Boston this year as well. Each team showed their style, skill set, and creativity as they solved today’s toughest real-world challenges posed by NASA. The solutions included leveraging data to predict solutions to drought, developing gamification for planetary tourism, 3D terraform mapping, and producing consumer devices that play the music of the cosmos. Participants used data from NASA, hardware such as RaspberryPi, and the Kintone API to create and visualize their solutions. Please check out https://www.spaceappschallenge.org/2023/locations/boston-ma/?tab=teams for more details about each fantastic project! Following each pitch was a judging Q&A session by our three esteemed judges. Team Renaissance Quintet won First Place. They built several original IoT devices that play data translated into music, with the goal to build understanding that space data is more than visual images and provide opportunities for blind individuals to experience space through sound and music. We wish them the best of luck at the Global hackathon judging event. We would also like to congratulate our second winner, Team O.D.D.S. for developing a data application solution that would help bring international data into a user friendly tool. We were impressed by all the teams creative presentations and loved to see all the innovative thinking throughout the hackathon. Finally, we’d like to thank our great judges, the Consulate General of Japan in Boston and our sponsors who supported us hosting ISAC Boston 2023 successfully. We hope all participants and people involved enjoyed the exciting 2-day journey with us and look forward to seeing everyone again next year! <NASA International Space Apps Challenge Boston 2023 projects> https://www.spaceappschallenge.org/2023/locations/boston-ma/?tab=teams <Awards> 1st prize – Renaissance Quintet 2nd prize – O.D.D.S Best Use of Kintone API – 1st – Renaissance Quintet Best Use of Kintone API – 2nd – O.D.D.S Amazon AWS Award – O.D.D.S Amazon AWS Award – Titan Terraforming Local Award – Journey to the center of the solar system <ISAC Boston 2023 Judges> Branden Allen,a Senior Research Scientist at the Harvard College Observatory Shinji Sato, an IT industry veteran with over three decades of experience in Silicon Valley. Naotake Murayama, Startup Chief of Figuring it Out, investor, board member, and mentor to founders. Sameer Kenkare, Corporate VC and Innovation group at AWS Startups Mirza Samnani, a robotics engineer at NASA JPL <Opening remarks> Kotaro Suzuki, Consul General of Japan in Boston Masami Onoda, Director of JAXA Washington D.C. Office, representing the Japanese space agency in the Americas. <Closing remarks> Branden Allen,aSenior Research Scientist at the Harvard College Observatory <Sponsors> Platinum sponsor : Amazon AWS Gold sponsor : Kintone Titanium Sponsor : Ogawa Coffee USA Gold Sponsor : Mitsubishi Corporation (Americas) Silver Sponsor : Toyota Friend Sponsor : Manabi-ya Boston Supported by : Consulate-General of Japan in Boston (在ボストン日本国総領事館) <Event website> NASA International Space Apps Challenge（ISAC）2023（https://www.spaceappschallenge.org/ ） NASA International Space Apps Challenge（ISAC）BOSTON 2023（www.spaceappsboston.org/ ） https://www.spaceappschallenge.org/2023/locations/boston-ma/
NASA Space Apps Challenge 2023 Event Page Launched!
NASA Space Apps Challenge 2023 Event Page : http://spaceappsboston.org/ NASA International Space App Challenge (ISAC) is an international mass collaborative hackathon focused on space exploration that takes place over 48-hours in cities around the world. Binnovative will once again be host to this year’s Boston location for the challenge, and we look forward to seeing what the bright minds of our community can come up with this time! 2023 is the 10th anniversary that NASA ISAC is held in Boston! To participate in our virtually hosted event, form your own team with your friends. Please make sure that all of your team members register. The event provides an opportunity for all participants to improve coding skills, get involved in Boston’s hackathon community, cultivate team collaboration skills, and… have a blast with your teammates!! This event embraces collaborative problem solving with a goal of producing relevant open-source solutions which are applicable to both life on Earth and life in space. NASA expects to see a wide scope of talents: programmers, designers, artists, engineers, scientists, entrepreneurs, developers, and more. Anyone with an eye towards creativity and the motivation to make those ideas a reality is welcome! Past Awards ISAC Boston 2022, second year winner of ISAC Global Winner in Art and Technology category. Team Earth, Wind and Flare Team Earth, Wind and Flare developed an interactive tool to represent data from the Parker Solar Probe to enable us to learn more about solar effects (aka space weather). The team’s submission, “Where you can Uncover the Invisible”, was an Internet of Things (IoT) device that publicizes space weather and its impacts on the Earth in an interactive and artistic way. They considered key elements for the device including a matrix board to display space and Earth weather, how to integrate data from multiple sources, and what visual and acoustic effects would be the most engaging. ISAC Boston 2021 local finalist team won ISAC Global Winner in Art and Technology category. Team Jimmy in the box Team Jimmy in the box was WOW-ed by how the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) uses origami-like folding and unfolding for its launch and deployment. Using their diverse skills and experience, this project builds computerized origami models for JWST in order to showcase its amazing design and “satisfying” deployment steps. CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFO AND TO REGISTER !
Boston team win second annual NASA Space Apps Challenge 2022 Global Award
Boston team win second annual NASA Space Apps Challenge 2022 Global Award （日本語版は英語版の後にあります） A team of Boston won the ‘Art and Technology’ award at the NASA International Space Apps Challenge for the second year in a row. This event, managed by the NASA Earth Science Division, is the world’s largest hackathon bringing together over 31,561 people from 323 locations and 5,327 teams around the world. The hackathon, which takes place globally in the fall and has been organized by Binnovative in Boston since 2014, was held virtually Oct 1-2 of this year. Teams across the world collaborated with each other to build innovative solutions that can solve our world’s problems. The winning Boston-based team, ‘Earth, Wind and Flare’, developed an interactive tool to represent data from the Parker Solar Probe to enable us to learn more about solar effects (aka space weather). The team’s submission, “Where you can Uncover the Invisible”, was a Internet of Things (IoT) device that publicizes space weather and its impacts on the Earth in an interactive and artistic way. They considered key elements for the device including a matrix board to display space and Earth weather, how to integrate data from multiple sources, and what visual and acoustic effects would be the most engaging. We are proud to have team ’Earth, Wind and Flare’ has been awarded ’Art & Technology Award’, one of ten such categories in the International Space Apps Challenge 2022. Team Project Page: https://2022.spaceappschallenge.org/challenges/2022-challenges/creative-data-display/teams/earth-wind-flare/project In our 9th consecutive year hosting the International Space Apps Challenge here in Boston (ISAC Boston , ISAC Boston local page ), we are grateful for the community that organized, judged, sponsored, participated, and volunteered this year! We thank you all for your kindness and generosity in supporting this annual event, and look forward to next year. For media inquiries contact: Eriko Nishimoto, Founder/CEO, Binnovative eriko@binnovative.org （日本語版） NASA ISAC Bostonのローカル優勝チームがNASA ISACグローバルハッカソンにおいて、Art & Technology部門賞を二年連続で受賞しました。 NASA Earth Science Division主催の同イベントは世界最大規模のハッカソンで、ボストンローカル大会(ISAC Boston , ISAC Boston local page )は2014年より毎年Binnovativeが運営主催しており、今年は2022年10月1日～2日に開催しました。2022年NASA ISAC グローバルハッカソンには世界323地域より5,327チーム、合計31,561名の参加、ボストンローカル大会では10チーム、合計50名が参加しました。 そのうち、Global Winnerは10の各部門に1チームずつ選ばれ合計10チームに与えられる狭き門で、Art & Technologyはそのうちの1部門です。 地域を超えて編成された各チームがグローバル課題の革新的解決策の創造に取り組んだ結果、ボストンローカル大会では”Earth, Wind and Flare”チームが優勝チームに選ばれました。同チームはParker Solar Probeより入手したデータを反映させるツールを作り、宇宙の天気など太陽の及ぼす影響を可視化出来る様にしました。 Where you can Uncover the Invisibleと呼ばれるこのツールは、宇宙の天気とそれが地球に及ぼす影響を相互に且つ美しく発信するIoT機器です。宇宙と地球上の天気を表示する基板、複数の情報源からデータを統合する仕組み、そして有効的な視覚と音響効果の3点がこのツールを支える重要な要素になっています。 ボストン大会(ISAC Boston) で優勝した本チームは、ボストン大会のローカルオーガナイザーよりNASA ISACのGlobal 審査へとノミネートされ、Global 審査を見事に勝ち抜きました。 私達BinnovativeはNASA ISACグローバルハッカソンの10部門の内、Art & Technology部門で”Earth, Wind and Flare”チームが受賞したことを大変嬉しく誇りに思います。また、IASC Bostonの優勝チームが、2012年、2022年と2年連続でArt & Technology部門を受賞したことも非常に喜ばしいことです。 受賞チームのプロジェクト詳細ページはこちら https://2022.spaceappschallenge.org/challenges/2022-challenges/creative-data-display/teams/earth-wind-flare/project BinnovativeはNASA ISACハッカソンのボストンローカル大会(ISAC Boston)を9年連続で運営していますが、この場を借りて今年も運営、審査、協賛、参加、ボランティアに携わって頂いた全関係者の皆様に改めて感謝の意をお伝えしたいと思います。同イベントへ様々な形でご協力を頂き、誠にありがとうございました。来年もまた皆様とお会い出来ることを楽しみにしております。 本件お問合せ先はこちら Binnovative Founder/CEO 西本会里子 eriko@binnovative.org
NASA ISAC Boston 2022 Survey Results
We conducted a survey right after the NASA ISAC Boston 2022 event to get the real voices of our participants. Here we would like to share the results from the survey respondents (N=18). Survey Participants by Occupation As more than 80% of the participants were students at school, most of the teams consisted of a mixture of students. Those who were graduate and undergraduate students majored in Computer Science & Astronomy, Biomedical Data Science, UX Design and Political Science, Engineering and Education and International Trading, etc. They enjoyed working together in a team with people from other schools and backgrounds. Survey Participants by Age We welcomed a variety of generations from pre-teen to over 40. Such a diversity in life experience and the stage of life reflected a wide variety of interest and focus on the project. How satisfied are you with the hackathon experience overall? We are pleased to hear that most participants were highly satisfied with the hackathon experience overall. One of the participants gave us feedback saying “A cool hackathon and pretty glad with how everything went. Wonderful challenges and a wide range of tools.” One thing to improve is to provide more effective support in matching teammates as some participants had difficulties in finding a teammate in a virtual setting. How satisfied are you with the mentor support? We are also glad to know that most participants found technical and specialized support from our mentor helpful in developing their ideas within these intense 2-days. Thankfully, one participant left us a comment saying “Your judges and mentors are extremely kind.” Once again, we as organizers of ISAC Boston 2022 are truly honored to have talented, aspiring participants. We are grateful to see that all participants enjoyed the hackathon overall. We will reflect this feedback to make our future event even more attractive and satisfying to everyone. Looking forward to seeing more talents next time!