CEHC Students Participate in the MIT Reality Hack 2024
ALBANY, N.Y. (Feb. 19, 2024)- Last month, students at the College of Emergency Preparedness, Homeland Security and Cybersecurity participated in the MIT Reality Hack in Cambridge, MA.
MIT Realty Hack is one of the largest Extended Reality (XR) hackathons in the world. This five-day event is where students from all different colleges and universities as well as industry professionals form groups and hack for two and half days. Participants build an application using immersive technologies such as virtual reality, augmented reality, and mixed reality (XR). Major companies like Meta, UltraLeap, Looking Glass Factory, and Niantic, bring their latest hardware and software for participants to hack with. Dr. Catherine Dumas, Interim Director of the Information Science PhD program, has been an MIT Reality Hack organization member for four years and actively recruited CEHC students to participate in the event this year.
Eleven PhD students, one master's student, and two undergraduate students participated in the event. Cybersecurity student Samuel Ajayi's '24, team won three prizes with their project Noir. PhD student Mahsa Goodarzi's team made it to the finals with their project Sublynk and two other PhD students, Vasuda Trehan, & Lakshika Vaishnav made it to the semifinals in the start-up track with their project Gesture VR and Rat in the Hat respectively.
"It's a prime opportunity for networking, and the MIT Reality Hackathon stands out as an excellent way to connect with others or even secure a job offer," Ajayi said. "I would recommend participating for the experience alone."
"For my project I got to build something with artificial intelligence and machine learning where I can work with the team of all experts and all over the world and learn something from them so those three days with all those mentors and coaches," Trehan said. "I got to learn so many new things which I didn't know like building a pitch for a startup and was like a place where I can have my AI machine learning and VR excel skills all together at one place."
Some other projects from the INF PhD students' teams included Muhammad Saidur Rahman's Unity Enzo, Faruk Curebal's Operator, Hakan Otal's EmpoweredAR, Ramazan Yener's MR Fossil, Austin Mueke's DelivAR Angel, and Barack Hussein's DELTA REAL/ation.
"The MIT Reality Hack is such an inclusive and diverse community. This year we had 37% female and 42% male participants which is unheard of in a tech event," Dumas said. "I was so excited to have our students be a part of this amazing experience. As the Director of the UX & Immersive Technologies Lab in CEHC, getting our students interested in XR technologies research is another positive outcome of their participation in the MIT Reality Hack."
A couple of other students found that the best part was being able to network.
Mahsa Goodarzi, INF PhD student, stated, "I got to practice the ideation and creativity process, research, and project management again. It was such a fruitful experience to work with talented people who share similar values. I learned a lot from the developer and designers on my team about the current technologies in XR. But, more importantly, I found an active and giving community of knowledgeable and caring mentors, experts, and friends."
"I didn't know about the MIT Reality Hack before I joined the event. This was my first VR event/project, and I loved it. I really enjoyed searching for models for our game and experimenting with Unity. It was a unique and amazing experience," Faruk Curebal said. "Next year, I will be there, more prepared."
"Blown away by MIT VR/AR Hackathon! Historic halls, collaboration with brilliant minds and our teams project for visually impaired people made it an unforgettable experience for me. Can't wait for the next one!" Hakan Otal said.
"It was an amazing experience and very exciting for me," Barak Hussein said. "This event was an eye-opener for some of us, because of the opportunities it provides. My team worked on a game project, leveraging AR and 3D-looking class technology to develop sustainable settlement solutions for the migrant population, in line with the UN SDG11. I encourage everyone to participate, and I look forward to next year."