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I entered the hack mancester competition with a few other people from Zuto, Tom McGiveron, Nathan Smith and Tom Pennington. It took place on the weekend of 29th-30th October and was held at the Museum of Science and Industry.

We decided to take on the challenge setup by the coop, which was in their words: “We’d like teams to make something that can help people who may be experiencing loneliness connect with each other/someone. It could be something physical that can go in the front of a Co-op Food Store using something like Raspberry Pi’s, Arduino’s, or something purely internet based.”

What we created was a piece of software we named the “CO-OP Community Hub”

It enabled coop shop users, to connect with other lonely people in their community, based on hobbies and interests. It would also find a place where they could meet. An example we used was for a group of older ladies who enjoyed knitting, it matched them and created an event at the local coffee shop for a weekly meetup.

We used various tech for this, from react for the front end, google maps api for location finding, to our own services to work out likeness of interests and matching similar people. I managed to get only about 10 minutes sleep, and stayed up the rest of the time. Out of a total of 14 teams who opted for the CO-OP challenge, we where thrilled to receive a nomination for the winner and were placed in the top three.

We also won best team name (Hackstreet Boys)!