Treehacks is back in person!
By Rana Taki
After being online for the past two years, Stanford’s biggest, universally known hackathon, Treehacks, has made its reappearance in Huang Basement in February 2023.🌲
For 2023, Stanford had 6 tracks: healthcare, sustainability, new frontiers, Web 3.0 and Fintech, education, and privacy and safety. More than 1600 hackers have been coding for 36 hours to develop projects encapsulating these topics.
Here are some of the winners, and my personal favorites from the weekend.
1. Talk to History
High school textbooks do not do justice to world history. This application has transformed the way history is taught by introducing live models of important historical figures to tell their stories. You can have a conversation with these figures and learn more about their experiences, and how they have changed history. This makes learning more interesting and interactive, and therefore encourages high school students to pursue history.
2. YouCare
This is an application for women who experience Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS). My views on this might be biased, but it is in fact a syndrome that is extremely hard to diagnose. Most women don’t even know they have it, while it results in a higher risk of type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, anxiety, and depression. This web page allows you to paste your data into the algorithm and determines if you are susceptible to PCOS. What I really like about this project is that they are very transparent about their code, and that they have displayed the code in the webpage which could contribute to people feeling more confident in sharing their information. I think this project would be a great step in medicine, helping women figure out their condition in a short amount of time, without necessarily consulting anyone.
3. First Plate
Valentine’s day is over and you still don’t have a date? This application matches you with restaurants and people to dine with. You enter your dating preferences and you get a date in the restaurant you were matched with. What I really like about this is that it matches you with people of the same food preference, so that even if the date is boring, you might as well just have a great meal.
4. Mixingjays
No more dull DJ performances. This application will be the next best thing in your local frat parties. Mixingjay transforms music into visuals using machine learning to detect the patterns and topics in the song. The music video is generated in real time and is in sync with the music. Its main goal is to lower the cost of DJ performances, making visuals accessible to more people.
5. Smart Shoe
This could be the most useful Jibbitz that you’ll attach to your crocs ever. Smart Shoe is an attachable sensor that helps you navigate through obstacles while walking. It targets people with loss of vision. What I really like about Smart Shoe is that the gadget is not as expensive as alternative vision aids, and is therefore very accessible.
6. GrazePro
One major source of carbon emissions is agricultural livestock. GrazePro enables farmers to forecast the optimal rotational grazing for their livestock, maximizing cattle health and the ability for grass to regrow. What I like about this simulation is that its user interface is very easy to understand. There is a history page which contains all the past information about the farm, which would help the farmer to adjust the products used on the grass accordingly.
7. ShipSense.app
The beautiful life underwater is in danger due to illegal fishing and overfishing. This application solves this problem by identifying ships that are near the coast and getting their locations/photos from the satellite. The user interface is absolutely beautiful, it’s easy to navigate on the map, and there are also multiple languages available. What I really like about this application is that the model they’re using only required them to train with 68 images to reach 96% accuracy — which is absolutely amazing compared to the 2000 image models that barely even work. In their future work, they are planning to use this model for medical applications as well.
These were only my favorite 7 applications amongst the 294 ideas. There are hundreds of unique and interesting applications (that you should check out too!) in the DevPost page:
