DAVIE, Fla. - Thirty-five teams of young hackers set up camp in a Broward College gym for 24 hours as part of the 10th annual PlutoHacks hackathon.

The gym at Davie’s A. Hugh Adams Central Campus was transformed into a workspace and vendor fair for the teams as they worked to come up with an idea for an app or a piece of hardware and have it working within 24 hours. Teams learned the theme at the start of the hackathon to prevent advance preparation, and this year’s theme was “past, present, future” to celebrate PlutoHacks’ 10th anniversary.

“This was the best turnout we’ve had so far,” said Michelle Levine, Associate Vice President at the Center for Teaching Excellence & Learning, who has helped organize the event since 2015. “The energy was amazing, and the students had some really good ideas.”

One highlight for Levine was that two of her online students, one in dual enrollment and the other from the College Academy, were part of the team that won Best First Time Hacker. Their project, LegacyDrive, was an app that can be installed on old computers to turn them into personal cloud storage devices both for increased privacy and to reduce e-waste.

Another team, made up of College Academy students, won Best Honorable Mention for mAI-Detector, a Chrome extension that scans pages for AI-written content and misinformation. The Best Past, Present & Future award went to a high schooler for the Universal Renewable Energy Factory (U.R.E.F), a prototype design for a renewable energy building created entirely in the Minecraft video game. Finally, the Best Overall award went to two FIU students for Voxtant, an AI interview coach that turned job postings into live practice sessions.

Winning teams qualified for big prizes like gift cards, a 3D printer and computer monitors, but for many the draw was creating things and making connections with new people. Levine said many past participants return as organizers and help mentor students. PlutoHacks conducts multiple weekly workshops in the lead up to the hackathon to help participants prepare.

Grace Hechavarria was one of those former students who works at the College as a programmer and has helped organize PlutoHacks since 2020.

“I learned a lot about building products and how to work with people and form bonds,” Hechavarria said of her past experiences. “It’s brought me friendships that I’ll have for a long time.”

Hechavarria said working as an organizer was even more fulfilling because she could help create an environment that allowed students to experience what she did.

Sunnah Imhotep, a first-time organizer and past participant who works for the College as a part-time lab assistant, said making the jump was a great experience.

“It was a lot less stressful than being a hacker because you don’t have to worry about the stress of the time limit,” he said.

Ester Sims, an event organizer who also works as an Academic Technologist in Computer Science, said it was impressive what the hackers created, especially with the majority being first-time participants.

“It’s amazing what they come up with in that timeframe and with no advance prep,” Sims said. “PlutoHacks gets better every year and creates community.”

-BC-