Well that’s it for another year, what a fantastic event PubHack #5 was, definitely the best one yet. Massive thanks to everyone who took part this year, we fully appreciate all the hard work that goes into producing some fantastic projects, especially in just 10 hours!
We had 40 people take part this year in 10 teams, and it took part at the lovely Coastguard Studio who were excellent hosts throughout the day as well as in the lead up to and after the event, so a huge thank you to James who runs the studio.
You can take a look at all the fun that was had during the day by following the hashtag #PubHack5 and we also did some live broadcasts on Facebook throughout the day which you can see on our page.
There’s a Facebook Group with a load of PubHackers in so make sure you join to get notified first of any future announcements, and all the photos are also on our Facebook page so make sure you get tagging!
The Theme
The day kicked off at 9am where we announced the theme, which this year was Heroes & Villains (absolutely was not decided on 10 minutes before the presentation).
The hacking began…
The teams got hacking throughout the day, fuelled by pastries, sandwiches and beer.
There were some fantastic projects being produced, including two politically fuelled games, one called T.R.U.M.P and the other called Speedy Brexit, as well as some socially responsible projects such as Become a Hero. We especially enjoyed a lot of the made up super heros that a couple of the teams came up with including Ironing Man and Mr Febreeze.
There were also projects involving Twitter API’s, Top Trumps, analysing news stories and a game called Cops N Robbers which had a retro Pacman/Bomberman feel to it.
There was a great mixture of technologies being used throughout the day, and the judges had a very hard time deciding upon winners because the projects were all excellent and very varied.
The Presentations
By 7pm the hacking had stopped and we moved onto the presentations, with every team taking part having 4 minutes to present their ideas. We’ll be posting up a blog highlighting the winners, along with the videos of the presentations over the next day or two so stay tuned for that!
Some thank you’s…
PubHack is always a tough event to organise, and we couldn’t do it without the support of our sponsors, so we would like to especially thank Spectrum IT, Multicolour, Port 57, FreeAgent, LQD Internet and Starboard Media for getting involved and ensuring we can run this event and keep ticket sales as cheap as possible for our attendees.
It’s a not-for-profit event so every penny is spent on the event, and I’m always astounded by the support from friends and PubHackers who get involved every year to make my life easier, so a massive thank you goes out to the following people: Harry Walter (for helping organise the whole thing and build the Wifi network), Rebecca Hill (who made up all our goody bags), Gareth Ablett (who takes time off from work to help out on the day), Robert Bryden (who knows nothing about computers but wanted to get involved on the day) and Karl March & Terry Lee (for coming down the day before to frantically help us set up the venue).
One of the toughest jobs is for the judges, who spend all day making sure they go round and get to know the teams and their projects in detail, and then have less than an hour to make some very tough decisions, so thank you to Rich Boakes, Dave Mackintosh and Charlotte Simonsen for taking time out to come along and make it a fantastic event.
So…
I’m currently in talks with Coastguard Studio about putting on PubHack #6 so stay tuned – you guys will be the first to know! If you’re interested in coming along, make sure you’re signed up to our mailing list (at the bottom of this site).
Hope to see you all again next year!
Jo Eyre
PubHack Organiser
www.twitter.com/jo_eyre
