Bitcamp

In a little more than two months, about 1,000 people will flock to Cole Field House, but the occasion won’t have anything to do with basketball.

From April 4 to 6, this university’s first-ever Major League Hacking-sanctioned hackathon will take place in the form of a 36-hour marathon competition called Bitcamp.

Event director Shariq Hashme said he expects anywhere from 750 to 1,250 participants from more than 100 universities, with more than 100 of those participants hailing from this university.

He said that even without extensive marketing, 300 hackers representing about 50 universities have registered so far — numbers that have Hashme feeling relaxed in the months before the event.

“It’s pretty interesting, but right now I don’t feel a lot of stress,” said Hashme, a junior computer engineering and computer science major. “Everything seems to be on track.”

Bitcamp has not received any university funding, so Hashme and his event planning team had to find sponsors to make the hackathon possible.

On top of offering travel reimbursements to the visiting hackers, the organizers realized they needed to provide food, security and an updated Internet infrastructure for the event, among other expenses, Hashme said.

So far, everything’s going according to plan, Hashme said.

Brent Bovenzi, Bitcamp facilities director, said cooperation from the university has been tremendous. The university has voiced support for the event, he said, and allowed organizers to use the historic field house at no cost.

“That’s probably been the most pleasant surprise: the support from the university,” said Bovenzi, a junior electrical engineering and government and politics major.

The idea for Bitcamp cropped up in October, Bovenzi said, at the tail end of what he said was an unexpected freshman campaign for the Terrapin Hackers. The university hacking club was crowned 2013 MLH champions that month.

“After winning a few prizes and talking with some of the people involved in MLH, there came this expectation that Maryland would eventually host a hackathon,” Bovenzi said.

Bitcamp will join the field of several other sizable student-run hackathons, such as MHacks at the University of Michigan and PennApps at the University of Pennsylvania, both of which housed at least 1,000 hackers in their most recent competitions.

This university’s hackathon is the latest development in a growing trend of larger hacking events, said MLH Commissioner Mike Swift.

“This is kind of the start of the mega-hackathon,” he said. “In the past year, we’ve essentially doubled our number of participants.”

Though the event at this university will be classified as a Division I college hackathon — a top MLH ranking given to events Swift said he can assure are quality — the university’s student organizers have made efforts to separate it from the pack by specifically targeting new hackers.

“One big thing that we really want to emphasize with the hackathon is that we want a lot of people who are new and not really too well versed in all this stuff to come out and use it as a chance to learn,” Bovenzi said. “Been meaning to learn to code? Go to a hackathon.”

Hashme said Bitcamp also looks to flip the script on the judging process. While there likely will be 12 judges to evaluate the projects, he said the way they plan to give out prizes is still not set in stone.

“We may not even have first, second and third places,” Hashme said. “We might just have category prizes. And we had some ideas for mini competitions, like giving teams a few rolls of duct tape with 30 minutes to make whatever they want.”

This semicompetitive but primarily educational environment is typical of something Swift defined as “hacker culture.” The competition is just a tool used to help spread a passion for hacking, he said.

“Hacking’s not about winning and losing,” Swift said. “If you go to a hackathon and lose, you’re not a bad hacker, just like if you go to a hackathon and win, you’re not necessarily a great hacker.

“You don’t change your life by competing in a sport — you can change your life by participating on a team and working toward something. That’s the value of a hackathon.”