On February 10, Edison High School’s student robotics organization “Team Faraday” hosted EagleHacks, a hackathon for middle schoolers. This event received a great amount of interest, with about 51 students coming from all four Edison middle schools. Students participated in coding and computer-aided design (CAD) workshops, and an engineering competition that pushed the kids to innovate and learn.
The hackathon was eye-opening because of the various solutions and languages my competitors used.
— Aditya Kattimani ‘28
Team Faraday initially brainstormed the event as an effort to fundraise, never expecting it to come to fruition at such a grand scale.
Two days before the hackathon, participants were given instructions, had their questions clarified, and the prompt was released: “Create a unique graphical user interface for a purpose, one meaningful to you, highlighting one unique feature of your choosing.”
It was really hard picking the definitive winner because everyone had great ideas and they all had slightly different interpretations of the prompt.
— Rithvik Banerjee ‘26
The hackathon began with opening speeches from Rithvik Banerjee ‘26, Head of Code, and Aditya Rao ‘26, Head of R&D, who kicked off the hackathon. The kids were given time to code, as members of the Faraday team walked around engaging them and answering questions.
“The hackathon was eye-opening because of the various solutions and languages my competitors used,” said Aditya Kattimani ‘28, a competitor from Woodrow Wilson Middle School.
As the day progressed, the kids were given a chance to expand their knowledge on coding at the coding workshop. During this workshop, students were able to learn how to begin coding and look over more complex projects.
I was not only extremely pleased with the amount of interest in the event but also with their advanced coding abilities at such a young age. They did a wonderful job and we hope to do this event again in the fall!
— Ms. Jaslin Kaur
After lunch, there was an opportunity to go to the CAD workshop where students learned how to design items of their choosing through different software. This was a new experience for many of the students, opening their eyes to the many possibilities of 3D printing and design.
Finally, after a hard day of coding, the projects were submitted at 1:00 p.m. for judging. Students were given the opportunity to explain their reasoning behind their application as well as to present it using a slideshow and live demonstrations of the code. After being shown many diverse and inspiring projects, the judges faced a dilemma when selecting the winners.
“It was really hard picking the definitive winner because everyone had great ideas and they all had slightly different interpretations of the prompt,” said Banerjee.
At the end, team Bharghav Chittireddy and Rohit Singh won the Most Creative Use of Code award, while team Ved Patel and Nirmann Patel won third place, Kartheek Kollu won second place, and Niral Parmar won first place.
Mr. Biral Patel, an esteemed member of the Edison BOE, stands along side the hardworking winners of the EHS Hackathon after a long day of coding.
Mr. Biral Patel, a member of the Edison BOE, is the keynote speaker at Eagle Hacks.
Over 40 students at the Eagle Hacks listened to the Board of Education Member and the keynote speaker for Eagle Hacks.
Mithil Mishra ’25, Rithvik Banerjee ’26, Winston Law ’27, Pranav Shankar ’27 watched as 8th grader Adithya Katimmanii presents his coding project.
“I was not only extremely pleased with the amount of interest in the event but also with their advanced coding abilities at such a young age,” said Faraday advisor Ms. Jaslin Kaur. “They did a wonderful job and we hope to do this event again in the fall!”
At the end of the day, the hackathon saw a huge turnout, and Team Faraday’s members learned a lot from the hours they put into organizing it. Faraday plans to make EagleHacks an annual affair, hoping to expand to other middle schools in the coming years.
