AT&T Mobile App Hackathon - Orlando Recap

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The Orlando event was probably our warmest event for the year and for sure we will be coming back. The developers were programming in the sun outside and that was a welcome change from the 37 degree weather we've been having back in Seattle. 

Moving on to the apps that were developed... All in, there were 16 high quality apps that were developed by 73+ developers over the course of the day. The mix between the different platforms are as follows: 6 Windows Phone, 2 RIM, 2 Appcelerator, 5 Platform A and 6 Android.

As for notable apps, the ATTi Yellow Pages apps took the cake this time around as they didn't just pull ads and post them. These apps used the ATTi API data to find interesting things like . The one that caught my eye was called "1KCalorieKillers" and used your geo-location to pull restaurants nearby that had food options with less than 1000 calories.

Also, here is a video demo of the one of the apps (Orlando Police Department Live) demo'd at the hackathon: http://youtu.be/xlU8y0a9bIE?hd=1. And here is a video compliation of photos from the hackathon. Photos from the event are located here and here. If you have images that you would like to add to the pile, please email them to me at alex.donn@att.com.

Alright, enough bantering, I'm sure you are curious about the winners, so here they are:

Hackathon Overall

• 1st Place - SkyMinders
• 2nd Place - Wordstar
• 3rd Place - Merchsnap

AT&T Interactive Yellow Pages

• 1st Place - Orlando Police Department Live (OPDLive)
• 2nd Place - Scavenger
• Flip Device Winners: Calorie Killer, MerchSnap, Delvin

RIM / Blackberry

• Playbook Device Winners: Pocket Inventory and Golf Buddy
  

Microsoft Winners

• 1st Place - LG Quantum Windows Phone + $250 Cash Money! - Orlando Police Department Live (OPDLive)
• 2nd Place - $250 Cash Money! - SkyMinders

And finally, here are all fo the app submissions in no particular order:

• RockIt! - We're in the HardRock, but what about the rock! RockIt! gives you pictures, news and the Twitter stream for all the rock news you need, complete with fully integrated social networking!
• RocketHack - Uses custom gesture recognizer to access or launch commonly used programs on your Android phone. It comes with a Launchpad that can be accessed from the notification menu at any time. It can also send Text Messages. The recognizer is scale, rotation, and translation invariant, with multi-stroke recognition abilities! That's it because we need to debug.
• FoundIt - Businesses and Cities can make scavenger hunts for users to complete for points. Users are given a set of clues that lead them to a location. When they are at that location, they "FindIt!". If their location is correct, they receive points. Contests can be run for daily, weekly, or monthly prizes. Target market is city chamber of commerces and large companies like Universal Studios.
• SkyMinders - Don’t you hate it when you forget something? Add a SkyMinder for yourself. Add a SkyMinder for your Facebook friends. Live Tile notifications. Notify when you get a new SkyMinder. List of open SkyMinders.
• Pocket Inventory - Allows businesses to keep track of inventory. Allows them to add new units, take account of selling units, and view current inventory.
• Wordstar - Wordstar is a fun and addictive game that challenges your ability to see word "constellations" in a universe letters. Compete by forming words as fast as you can racing against time. Be careful not to get the lines of your constellations to cross, or father Zeus will send bolts of lightning your way."
• Codar - The Code Radar Geo locates Github projects, and developers, that are local to you.
• Paranormal Hunter - 2 Players Ghost hunter with Virtual Camera
• Charitab.ly - This app allows you to easily connect with the charities in your area to either donate money or your time... or even both!
• Orlando Police Department Live (OPDLive) - The app presents police activity data in real time. In plots the incidents on a map (Google for Android and Bing for Windows). It also shows the data in a list view for easier browsing.
• DelvIn - Provide users the ability to plan and schedule local experiences. Utlizing APIs for businesses and events to find things to do and using social media outlets to spread the word.
• MatchMe - Find clothes that match a certain color that you have by using complimentary colors.
• Golf Buddy - The app gives a slide show of golf locations, a short golf quiz, a scoresheet for actual play, and an HTML5 map application that shows the distance between you and the hole.
• 1KCalorieKillers - Identifies gluttonoues places to eat within vicinity and keeps tabs on how good (or bad) you and your friends do at avoiding those.
• MerchSnap - MerchSnap provides independent music artists and their fans with a no/low cost way to connect and buy branded merchandise such as t-shirts, stickers, posters and more. Directly from a venue, show or comfort of their own phone, users can get the merch they want and support bands that otherwise don't have the capital to buy wholesale or the resources to set up their own sites and e-commerce solutions. Through the app, users can instantly order their favorite items and have them shipped at their leisure, providing bands with needed support and revenue and fans with the merch they love!
• Co-worker Finder - augmented reality app. Video feed is overlaid by employee's name. Provides an easy way to find your coworkers in huge office buildings.

Big props also have to be given to the local Microsoft evangelists for their awesome support of the event with the local dot net user groups and their local connections and promotions to the Orlando and Tampa app developer groups. 

With such excellent weather and fun developers, we will be scheduling more hackathons in the area. Next stop, Miami!