Results Recap
A Saturday night at the Fab Lab Center, energy through the room as young coders gathered together. This competition was a full-on adventure into what we could create together.
Ananya Maheshwari absolutely crushed it at STEMEPA's Innovate Challenge. A freshman at Council Rock North, she came in solo and walked out with 72 points, almost FIVE TIMES more than the runners-up.
She demonstrated expertise in both Python and Java, solving problems that had teams of two and three scratching their heads. This representation is very important for our community.
Team RAM brought the energy! Their collaboration was on point, and watching them bounce ideas off each other was exactly the kind of teamwork hackathons are all about.
Team Anay brought the dedication, staying focused through the whole event and keeping positive energy. The collaboration in the room wouldn't have been the same without them.
Participants faced a series of difficult problems. Staring at that screen and watching everyone think through each challenge was both stressful and amazing. It pushed our contestants to be smarter, faster, more creative.
Extract hidden messages from strings by finding letters that follow vowels—pure cryptography! Had to code a parser that could sift through random letters to reveal the real message. Classic steganography challenge.
Calculate wasted water from a leaky pool using rate formulas. Math meets real-world problems! Had to figure out how much water escaped while the pool was filling up.
Compare ship systems database vs working systems to find what needs inspection. Set operations and comparisons—who knew Navy ship maintenance could be this interesting?
Strip out special characters from text, keeping only letters, numbers, and spaces. String manipulation basics but super important for cybersecurity and data cleaning.
Custom hash function implementation! Turn text into binary, pad it, process chunks with XOR/AND operations, rotate bits—the works. Comparing checksums to verify data integrity.
Line-of-sight detection for emergency communication relays. Check if terrain blocks signals between tower and command posts. Geometry meets disaster response—one of the hardest ones.
Want to see the full problem descriptions?
A huge thank you to our venue partner, The Fab Lab Center, for hosting and supporting this event with a welcoming space, top-tier tech setup, and true enthusiasm for youth innovation. Your support made this night possible.
Thank you to every mentor, volunteer, and judge who lent their time, insight, and encouragement throughout the evening.
Stay tuned for the photo gallery and team interviews, coming soon to our website and social media.
Want in on the next one? Whether you're here to compete, mentor, or just show support, we'd love to have you. This is just the beginning.
Learn more at STEMEPA.org
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