Some Upper School (US) students might choose to spend an all-nighter binge watching their favorite TV shows, eating a pint of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, and listening to their favorite songs on repeat. Members of the Computer Science Club, however, chose to stay up all night writing code.
HacKnight, the Computer Science Club’s student-led overnight coding event, took place at the US over the weekend of June 1 and 2. The event had two components: a Learnathon, where students taught various computer science- related concepts, and a 24-hour Hackathon, where groups created computer science projects.
While planning the Hackathon, event organizers had the opportunity to choose the component upon which they would focus. After receiving the grant, the group decided to combine their ideas for the Learnathon and Hackathon to create a successful and interactive experience for event attendees.
Education Fellow Eben Cook was one of the faculty in the Teaching and Learning Office (TLO) who awarded the HacKnight project with an innovation grant. Mr. Cook said the project brought together the community to engage in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM).
“The TLO strives to support community members who have identified a potential area of growth at the school and have an idea of how to act on it, yet require seed funding and further project management guidance. The HacKnight team possessed a palpable passion for bringing a communal, computer science-centric event to our campus and deprivatizing the knowledge they’ve gained and the memories they’ve made from their own endeavors as STEM enthusiasts and hackathon attendees.”
Event organizer Diba Demir ’25 said she had a fantastic time overall.
“Despite the lack of sleep and occasional five- minute naps during the overnight Hackathon, there was a really high-spirited environment overall,” she said. “The Learnathon introduced new coders to computer science and allowed experienced ones to experiment with different concepts. The Hackathon fostered a collaborative and social setting for programmers as they left with a complete and functioning project in just a few hours.”
In between workshops, attendees had the opportunity to listen to guest speaker Katya Ivshina, an Applied Math PhD student at Harvard University who works in topological and geometric machine learning.
Fellow event organizer Sophia Stafford ’25 enjoyed hearing Katya Ivshina speak.
“It was amazing to hear her story, advice, and perspective on machine learning and its applications.”
By late afternoon on Saturday, participants began arriving for the Hackathon portion of the event. This year’s Hackathon theme was “Side Quests,” which participants interpreted in a variety of ways. Event organizers encouraged participants to design a game, app, or website that related to the “little elements of life that go unseen.” The participants then had 24 hours to work on their projects before the judging ceremony began.
“At the judging ceremony, we encouraged all participants to walk around and look at one another’s projects,” Sophia said. “We were really impressed by everyone’s technical and creative skills.”
Annie Zhu ’26, another event organizer, was pleased with the outcome, she said.
“I was very happy with the overall experience of the Hackathon. Students walked out happy having learned something new or created a project they were proud of. I was proud of our teamwork to prepare for the Hackathon and the amount of effort everyone put into the preparation for the best experience possible.”
Victoria Nassikas ’25, a workshop leader and member of the winning Hackathon group, especially enjoyed seeing various interpretations of the side quest theme, she said.
“It was really interesting to see what people had accomplished in the short amount of time that we had. It was also really fun to meet and work with kids from different schools.”
Victoria’s group made a Chrome web extension. In the process, she was able to learn how web extensions work. Victoria was surprised by how similar the process was to web design.
“Like a website, we were coding in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. I also learned how to use GitHub, which I think will be a very useful skill to have.”
Chief Learning Officer Jed Lippard was proud of the students for their successful night under uncertain circumstances, he said.
“Pulling off an event of this magnitude is no small feat,” he said. “Whereas it wasn’t always certain that Hacknight was going to happen, the student leaders’ determination, collaboration, and perseverance ultimately led to its success. It was inspiring to witness their attention to detail and their unwavering commitment to turning a vision into a reality. Huge gratitude also to the many adults, namely Dr. Mattern, Dr. Cook, and Mr. Cook, who supported them along the way.”
