Cruz Hacks 2022: Making a Better World
Team Cruz Hacks 2022 (left to right): top row: Sidhanta Sharma, Eliot Winchell, Ajay Bhatia, and Tracy Rocha. Middle row: Sonali Malik, Navya Rao, Khushi Shah, Avani Karkare, and Tony Ma. Bottom row: Jiewen Li and Hannah Wong.
Cruz Hacks 2022 was another success - now 8 years and counting! A high-energy team of 11 UCSC students planned and executed a second “virtual” event year. 45 projects were submitted in the final minutes of the 2.5 day hackathon. Of the 182+ hackers, 30% were female or non-binary. 56% of the participants were first-time hackers. 80% of the hackers were from UCSC & Santa Cruz County. Prize tracks were: Health Hacks, Justice Hacks, Education Hacks, Beginner Hacks, Golden State Hacks, UI/UX Hacks, and Best High School Project.
Sonali Malik
“I was incredibly impressed by all of the projects our hackers put together in such a short period of time! Many online events have noticed a decrease in participation and engagement. Although this is something that we definitely struggled with as well, all of the hackers this weekend were really enthusiastic and we saw increased participation in workshops and games compared to last year. We also had a large number of first-time hackers and quite a few high school teams this year. These teams were able to put together some awesome projects with goals that ranged from increasing the accessibility of educational resources to identifying fake news. I'm really proud of everything our team accomplished this year and I am looking forward to next year!” Sonali Malik / Executive Director Cruz Hacks 2022
History
Cruz Hacks was founded in 2013 by Mark Adams, Brent Haddad, and Doug Erickson. The first event - Hack UCSC - was held on April 5-6, 2014. In July 2017, the event was rebranded to Cruz Hacks to serve a larger audience and market. In the spirit of innovation, the tenets of this annual event are to 1) provide participants with a world class hackathon experience, 2) to develop solutions to real-world problems, 3) pursue inclusion in tech, 4) connect students with community and industry, and 5) to stimulate local job opportunities. Each year, a new student team is selected to managed run the hackathon. The 2021-22 board of Cruz Hacks includes: Doug Erickson / President, Nathan Westrup / Secretary, Tony Ma / Treasurer, and Amanda Rotella / City of Santa Cruz. Advisors include Sue Carter / UCSC, Drew Meyer / Amazon, and Nada Miljkovic / UCSC. Cruz Hacks is a 501c3 organization.
Winners
SmartFlask
The SmartFlask measures the amount of water in a water bottle and the amount you've consumed over time. It then transmits a radio signal to a receiver and posts it to a web server where the data is saved to a database for you to view it later in the web browser.
Category: Health Hacks, Best Hardware Hack
Video: SmartFlask
Virtual Planner
Why carry a planner with you when it already exists on the device you carry? With our virtual planner, teachers and students can put their assignments and TO DO lists online to keep them organized.
Category: Education Hacks / Digital NEST
Video: Virtual Planner
NewsChain
NewsChain is a platform that saves, verifies, and searches for news articles and images associated with a certain publisher (such as the New York Times) to the blockchain. Publishers can upload an article title or a photo, both of which are converted into hashes (titles hashed with SHA256, images hashed with a Perceptual Hash) before being sent to a Smart Contract that stores the information. They can also upload the body text of the article, which isn't stored directly on the blockchain. Instead, we use Google's NLP API to perform sentiment analysis and content classification on the body text, and associate this data with the article on a separate database.
Category: Justice Hacks, Most Ambitious
Video: NewsChain
WasteLess
Instead of tossing leftover food that won't be served the next day, why not donate the surplus to locals in need? Our goal is to connect restaurants, schools, hotels, and more with less fortunate community members to prevent daily leftovers from being wasted. Tailoring to the user's needs based on their profile, an institution will have the ability to post information about their food surplus, while individuals will be able to connect to a place with leftover food. When an individual selects a location, they can easily view the address of the food bank along with any supplementary information to make the redistribution process run smoothly. In doing so, we hope to support those in need by directing excess food traffic towards them.
Category: Best Golden State, Best Use of Google Cloud
Video: WasteLess
MediBill
This application is designed to provide patients with an easy way to digest information on their medical bill and compare the prices of each procedure to the average, giving them the opportunity to negotiate. If the user sees a procedure that wasn't preformed, they now have the information to dispute the charge.
Category: Best UI/UX
Video: MediBill
Educare
Students will apply to be matched to a mentor that suits their general interests and location. After this point, they can connect with mentors regularly and get advice. If they need changes in mentors, Educare also allows them to rematch with a new mentor that may be better fitted for them. Our website aims to close the educational and achievement gap that many school systems face due to low funding and lack of resources
Category: Best Beginner
Video: Educare
BurgerVR
BurgerVR is a fully functional fast food restaurant operating within the metaverse. Located within an idyllic forest, BurgerVR provides customers with the ambiance of a real burger joint from the comfort of their homes. The ordering process works like this: BurgerVR customers approach the cashier to activate our ordering system. This connects the customer to Betty's Burgers in the real world. They give the employee their address and what they would like to order. Once they've obtained their real-world burger, the customer enjoys the great taste in one of BurgerVR's classic red booths.
Category: Most Creative Use of Twilio
HappyPlace
Players will be able to create their own soothing space and be encouraged to take part in healthy everyday habits and self care activities. For example, our prototype highlights the cooking minigame, which tells the player about the benefits of making your own meals and walks the player through the steps of preparing a meal, using a real recipe that the player can then try on their own after playing. By completing activities in a virtual space, we want players to feel encouraged and enabled in forming self-care habits in their real lives as well.
Category: Best Domain Name
Video: HappyPlace
Re-LIEable
Our product works by detecting facial expressions through facial recognition. We use a webcam to detect their face and use sounds to see if their pitch changes. When a person asks questions, the web camera will see if their expression was different from before. There are no signs of grins, laughs, and the symmetry in face alignment changes. We compiled all of this and sent it through a single button to make the process easy and direct. With this, we have a history of the timestamps of when the person lied.
Categories: Best High School Project
Video: Re-LIEable
Remedy
REMEDY is an AI trained with over 27,000 photos of various skin conditions, from eczema to melanoma cancer. It analyzes a picture the user submits in the app of a possible disease site, and will be returned with the expected condition and percentage that the AI’s analysis was correct. The page also allows the user to create a link to their results, so they are able to send it to their dermatologist or family members.
Categories: Best High School Project
Video: Remedy
Specialized Success
Today, finding internships are harder than they’ve ever been for college students. We wanted to create something that would help people of varying skill levels find internships that would fit their expertise and skill level. We created a webpage that determines the computer science skills of a user and then uses that data to bring up internships that would best fit their skill set.
Categories: Digital NEST
Video: Specialized Success
studyNEST
StudyNEST will be a learning platform where users can find videos and resources that will help them understand a subject and be able to advance and learn. We also wanted to make chat rooms for users to be able to help each other and work together on different subjects.
Categories: Digital NEST
Video: studyNEST
Remedia
Remedia allows users to locate information about their medications through taking a picture of your medication, searching the brand name (e.g. Advil) or the scientific name (e.g. Ibuprofen) in the search bar, or selecting the feature of a pill such as color, imprint, and shape. The user is given information such as what the medication does, why people would have to take said medication, how to store the medication, side-effects (color-coded based on the severity), signs of overdose, etc.
Categories: UCSC Genomics Inst.
Video: Remedia
TrashTalk
TrashTalk is a chatbot that gives a user advice on where to dispose of their waste. It provides educated & educationalresponses that not only give you an immediate answer but also enough information to learn why. And, it's self-aware. On the site itself, you can explore resources, classification charts, and more!
Categories: Earth Hacks
Video: TrashTalk
CovidNet
• Helps Users connect with people around them, and make friends during the difficult times of Covid.
• Updates the Users with recent Covid Verified NEWS
• Suggests Informational videos related to Covid
• Helps Users keep track of their covid test report’s records
• Helps Users find nearby repaid covid test centers
Categories: QB3 @ UCSC
Video: CovidNet
bewithdoggie
bewithdoggy is an integrated hardware system that allows an autonomous RC car to follow dogs around at a dog park.
Categories: Secret Prize #1 – Wildest Idea, CROSS
Video: bewithdoggie
Tabit
Tabit is a mobile application that helps you track your goals and habits. With a user friendly, clean design and friend accountability feature, reaching your goals has never been easier and more supportive.
Categories: Secret Prize #2
Video: Tabit