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13 Teams Recognized at IrvineHacks 2024

Hack at UCI hosted IrvineHacks 2024, the largest collegiate hackathon in Orange County from Jan. 26-28. Sponsored by Google Cloud, CoreLogic, Melissa Education and more, IrvineHacks 2024 brought together innovative minds to create projects that ranged from helping users find housing to providing an interactive space to document their travels.

A room full of students, sitting at desks and working on laptops
IrvineHacks 2024. (Photo courtesy of Alan Chang)

Projects were judged based on technology, quality and purpose. Here are the winning hacks from IrvineHacks 2024:

Best Overall: ZotConnect

ZotConnect facilitates direct communication between students and professors to increase student participation in research at UCI. Professors post research opportunities on ZotConnect that students are matched to, ensuring they get applications from students who are best suited for the role.

ZotConnect was built by:

Three guys standing behind a laptop that says ZotConnect on the screen
The ZotConnect students (from left): Aaron Lin, Hrishikesh (Rishi) Srihari and Abhigyan (Abhi) Arya (not pictured: Christopher Li). (Photo courtesy of Taesung Hwang)

Best Overall Runner-Up: ASL Alphabet Detector

ASL Alphabet Detector enhances video communication for members of the ASL community by using computer vision and deep learning to synchronously transcribe ASL hand gestures into English letters.

ASL Alphabet Detector was built by:

Three women standing in front of a projector screen with Best Overall Hack (Runner-Up): ASL Alphabet Detector shown.
The ASL Alphabet Detector students (from left): Sofia Perez de Tuleda, Azra Zahin and Ngoc Huynh. (Photo courtesy of Hack at UCI)

Best Beginner: Split It

Split It simplifies the process of splitting the bill at a restaurant. It automatically calculates what each person pays based on what they ordered and shared, pools everyone’s contributions and then sends the money to the restaurant.

Split It was built by:

  • Justin Kim – second-year cognitive science major, UCSD
  • Tsering Wangyal – second-year cognitive science major, UCSD
  • Leonel Montoya – second-year aerospace engineering major, UCSD
  • Diego Arévalo Fernández – second-year data science major, UCSD

Hacker’s Choice: Amelia

Built with Google’s Gemini AI model, Amelia is a travel companion equipped with “speech-to-text, text-to-speech, photo-to-speech, and speech-to-photo processes” to enhance users’ travel experience.

Amelia was built by:

  • Jose Gonzalez – third-year software engineering major, UCI
  • Justin Nguyen – fourth-year electrical engineering major, UCI
  • Casey Tran – fourth-year computer science major, UCI
  • Dylan Vu – fourth-year computer science major, UCI

Best Travel Hack: Xplore

Xplore is a travel companion that simplifies travel planning. Once users provide details about their travels and attraction preferences, Xplore uses AI-driven recommendations to curate “the perfect travel agenda.”

Xplore was built by:

  • Akash Iyer – first-year computer science & engineering major, UCI
  • Jay Wu – first-year computer science & engineering major, UCI
  • Elissa Yang – fourth-year electrical engineering major, UCI
  • Bill Zhang – first-year computer science graduate student, USC

Best Meme Hack: Robloxify

Robloxify assists Roblox game developers by generating game titles based on genre and description. Users can also interact with various memes on the website.

Robloxify was built by:

  • Mae King – first-year computer science major, UCI
  • Arya Mhaiskar – second-year computer science major, UCI
  • Omar Yahia – second-year computer science major, UCI
  • Michelle Sheu – fourth-year computer science major, UCI

Best Patient Safety Technology Hack: Meddit

Meddit provides an anonymous space for healthcare professionals to engage in discussions about medical topics in an attempt to reduce and prevent medical errors as well as foster a sense of community.

Meddit was built by:

Best Use of Google Cloud API: Faster Fashion

Faster Fashion uses the Google Cloud Vision API to address the challenge of finding similar articles of clothing. Users first upload an image of a clothing item and are presented with a variety of similar pieces that they can browse through.

Faster Fashion was built by:

Best Use of Melissa API or Data Sets: Resify

Resify combats housing and rental scams by verifying property ownership using the Melissa API. Verified homeowners receive a unique code from Resify that prospective renters can use to view property certificates and have peace of mind during their housing search.

Resify was built by:

  • Kyle Tran – first-year computer science major, UCI
  • Johnny Do – second-year computer science major, UCI
  • Han Seo Ro – second-year computer science major, UCI
  • Aryaman Dayal – first-year computer science and mathematics double major, UCSD

Best Use of Using Publicly Available Data Set (First American): myPillBox

myPillBox digitizes medication management to ensure users remember to take the right medications at the right time. It records patients’ medication history, which can be shared with their healthcare providers.

myPillBox was built by Thor Christoffersen Hochman, Juan Muhirwe and Jason Wiemels.

Best Use of Blockchain (WEMADE): Sonder

Sonder is a platform for college students to anonymously share snippets of their lives through images and text. The team hopes to expand Sonder to allow students to post music and videos.

Sonder was built by:

  • Andrew Hwang – first-year undeclared major, UCI
  • Justin Siek – first-year data science major, UCI
  • Celina Panda – first-year computer science major, IVC
  • Megan Lai – first-year artificial intelligence for business major, USC

Best 3D Hack: Pastport

Pastport allows users to document their travels by uploading pictures from each destination they’ve visited and displaying them on an interactive globe.

  • Tyler Nguyen – second-year computer science major, UCI
  • Ibrahim Shah – second-year computer science major, UCI
  • Andrew Ho – third-year computer science major, UCI
  • Joshua Goon – second-year anthropology and computer science double major, University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign

Best Use of Peter Portal AP (ICSSC): zot-tree

zot-tree displays a visualization of all the course sequences of a degree in a tree structure to help students with course and degree planning.

zot-tree was built by:

  • William Chu – third-year computer science major, UCI
  • Raymond Yan – third-year computer science major, UCI
  • Vanessa Tang – fourth-year computer science major, UCI
  • Andy Tonthat – fourth-year computer science major, UCI

Hack at UCI and Women in Information and Computer Sciences will host VenusHacks 2024 in the spring quarter.

View the rest of the projects on the IrvineHacks 2024 Devpost.

— Karen Phan

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