Sleepless nights, excessive energy drinks, challenging work and craftsmanship,intelligence, obstacle evasion, and a demanding level of dedication; no this is not another episode of “Surviving the Wild”, it is IEEE AUB’s annual Build It Weekend!

The Build It Weekend is a yearly, national, university-level hardware hackathon weekend; organized jointly by the IEEE AUB Student Branch and the AUB Robotics Club. Its second iteration was held from 16-18 of February in the American University of Beirut in IOEC Labs and OSB Maamari Auditorium. A total of 31 teams formed by 111 students from different universities all around Lebanon participated in the 48-hour hackathon. Such universities included: AUB, AUL, MUC, USEK, LU-Roumieh, LU-Tripoli, AUST, LIU-Tripoli, LIU-Beirut, UoB, BAU, LAU, and NDU. Teams were required to design, program and build a functional prototype that exhibited a sense of innovation, creativity, and usefulness that adhered to the “A Peek into the Future” theme. 27 out of the 31 teams made it to the final day with a functional prototype.

All designs were interesting and innovative, yet three teams were finally awarded at the closing ceremony. Judged by Dr. Imad el Hajj, Dr. Ayman Kayssi, and Dr. Mehran Madani, the winning teams were finally selected. In third place team “Cyclone” from AUL, won 300$ for their smart taser prototype. In second place team “Interlude” formed by a collaboration of AUB, USJ, LIU, and UoB students won 500$ for their automated CPR machine. And in first place, team “SMDJ” from AUST took the grand prize of 700$ for designing a game table that connects to an android app via Bluetooth. It is important to note our youngest participants; a group of 16 year old 11^th grade students from Universal High School who showed passion and dedication throughout the event. They developed a smart barrier, that recognizes cars through an RFID tag, records entry and exit, and would help in locating specific cars and reduce traffic click here jam due to security barriers meant to locate criminals.

As IEEE AUB student branch and AUB Robotics Club, we were extremely proud of the huge number of participants, their high prototyping skills level, their dedication and perseverance. It is because of them that we were able to host one of the biggest hardware hackathon in the region. Also, a special thanks should go to the organizing team that worked tirelessly before the event and throughout the weekend to make it happen and create the only student lead hardware hackathon.

From IEEE AUB:

• Elie Tamer
• Leila El Murr
• Larissa Abi Nakhle
• Maha Al Horr
• Rawan El Jamal

From AUB Robotics Club:

• Zeid Qiblawi
• Samer Abu Thaher
• Ibrahim Fawaz
• Rasha Al Khateeb

Finally, it is because of our sponsors and partners that this event was able to happen free of charge for the contestants. Our Silver sponsors were: EKT, International Education Association, and Mouna Boustros Foundation. While our partners included MSFEA, IEEE Lebanon Section, and AUB ECE department; in addition to our technical partners: Lamba Labs and CNC Labs. Catering was provided from Sandwich 3omoume, Tomatomatic, and Nescafe.

Author: Kareem Ayoub