Not 24 hours in a mental asylum. Not 24 hours in the Bermuda Triangle or any typical Mr. Beast video. 24 hours in a dome, specifically the Juniper’s Aspiration Dome. Tinovation, Cupertino High School’s largest coding project-based club, alongside 70 to 80 students, made up the turnout of PioneerHacks 2023. The first in-person hackathon held by Tinovation since COVID-19 had major triumphs, including a large attendee count and collaboration with their sponsor Juniper.

Coming back in person, Tinovation’s hackathon took careful planning. Tinovation’s officers shared the logistics for the Hackathon to occur. This large event was hosted by Juniper Networks, a growing networking hardware company, while also accumulating high numbers of sponsors. Tinnovation’s officer team, along with their sponsors, culminated in planning a very successful hackathon.

All of the code and behind-the-scenes were necessary to present the hackathon, where contestants were provided with the tools necessary to design anything they wanted within a 24-hour period. Annie Shang, a first-time hackathon competitor, reflected on her experience at PioneerHacks. Shang and her team took home first place in the beginners’ category for an AI database based on our school so people could ask CHS-specific questions. As a beginner, Shang considered PioneerHacks a great learning experience, especially with the aid of the student mentors who were there to guide her throughout the process.

“[The hackathon] was really timely, and the turnout was good, so I think it was very successful in my eyes as a participant.”

Besides its success and a good platform to learn to code, PioneerHacks provided its contestants with a fun time along with great resources. Shang mentioned the judges being from Juniper and how their experience with coding brought forward a great resource to show their project too. Additionally, PioneerHacks was compared to a giant sleepover, which Shang recommends to others and would do it again.

“[If] you just like free food or free t-shirts, I would recommend it because if you do it with your friends. It’s just like a big sleepover where you learn about code, eat good stuff and have fun at paper airplane competitions.”