Hacking Their Way Through Uber HackTag 2.0, These Top Three Teams Won Cash Prizes Worth INR 5 Lakhs!

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Hacking Their Way Through Uber HackTag 2.0, These Top Three Teams Won Cash Prizes Worth INR 5 Lakhs!

Creativity is intelligence, having fun! And what better way to put your intelligence to have fun than hackathons! This year, Uber thought of bringing some brilliant brains on one platform with its HackTag 2.0 competition. The competition was open to all engineering students across India.

After a tough fight, Team Xsparks from KIET Group of Institutions emerged on the top. YellowPlatedCoders (IIT Dhanbad) and CodeLite (BITS Pilani) grabbed the second and third place respectively. We bring to you the experiences of these top three teams at HackTag 2.0. But first a quick round up of the hackathon.

The Uber HackTag 2.0

Uber HackTag 2.0 was organized to encourage engineering students across branches to put their coding skills to test and manifest their big tinkering ideas. HackTag 2.0 was organized in 4 rounds.

Round 1	Online MCQ challenge based on Computer Science fundamentals
Round 2	Online Coding Challenge
Round 3	Building a prototype based on a theme or problem statement
Round 4 (Grand Finale)	Teams had to further build on their prototype further to create a demoable outcome.

The top three teams were rewarded from a cash prize pool worth ₹5 Lakhs. The winning team received INR 2,50,000 while the second and third teams were granted INR 1,50,000 and INR 1,00,000 respectively.

Let’s take you through the experiences of these teams.

The winning plan of action

The Uber HackTag 2.0 saw more than 35000 competitors putting forth their excellent coding skills. Hence, the competition was indeed tough! So how did the winner teams strategize their win without buckling under pressure?

Sharing their strategy, Team Xsparks from KIET said,

“Our strategy was to devise means to enhance a technology at the basic level and think about the ways in which our model could be helpful to Uber in expanding its user base. Our biggest challenge was to come up with a working demo in a short time. But our focussed and collaborative efforts made us achieve the goal in time.”

Team YellowPlatedCoders from IIT Dhanbad, who secured second position in the competition, worked on computer vision and machine learning to make a device to check for distracted road driving and alert the driver. For them strong communication amongst team members, and an overarching mentorship, acted in their favor and made their journey appear as a cakewalk.

When it comes to the third finalist team from BITS Pilani-Team CodeLite, planning was the most important aspect of their approach. Stating their strategy, the team said,

“Success of a project is determined by how well it is carried out. Implementing ideas and coming up with feasible solutions requires a collaborative effort. Over the course of a few weeks, we worked on the theme provided by Uber. We considered the potential challenges that the client base would face in their daily lives, devised a solution, and began working on it day and night. Although we experienced hurdles in integrating the tech stack in accordance with our idea, we overcame them as best as we could by utilizing the finest technologies available.”

Together, we can!

There goes a saying, “If everyone is moving forward together, success takes care of itself!” For the three winner teams coordination between the team members was the cornerstone of their dynamics.

When asked about the experience of working in a team, Team CodeLite stated,

“Our purpose was to work effectively as a team. Hence, we focused on taking everyone's ideas into consideration and dealt with arguments in a mature manner and resolved them in the best possible manner.”

Team YellowPlatedCoders said,

“Our experience as a team turned out to be a victory in itself. We communicated our ideas with each other and covered up for each other at times when any member wasn't able to participate due to their other engagements.”

And for Team Xsparks, the key was taking decisions mutually and building over each other’s constructive ideas.

The takeaways

For the three teams, Uber HackTag 2.0 was an enriching ride. As per Team Xsparks, the biggest learning they took from the hackathon was to learn to think as engineers not as coders!

For Team CodeLite, the hackathon provided them a great way to express their tech ideas, learn new skills and provided them a taste of how things actually function in the real world.

While for Team YellowPlatedCoders the biggest takeaway was time management. With their college examinations period coinciding with the final hackathon round, they had to juggle between the two. And guess what? They managed to come out with flying colors at both!

After all the hustle-bustle, the announcement of the final results was exhilarating. Their hard work paid off. In the words of YellowPlatedCoders, the final result was the show stealer of the Uber HackTag 2.0 journey!

Wishing our heartiest congratulations to the three teams!