12/8/2010 Alyssa Eade, Computer Science
Written by Alyssa Eade, Computer Science
Brothers, teammates, and computer science students Hani and Islam Sharabash won the Facebook Camp Hackathon competition on November 11, 2010. The competition featured a face-off between winners of smaller hackathons on five college campuses who then came to Facebook headquarters to create new applications in just one night. Facebook leaders including president of engineering Mike Schroepfer, director of design Kate Aronowitz, and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg judged the young developers.
The Sharabash brothers’ winning app called Airchalk is an augmented reality app that allows users to use their phones to draw on a display, much like that of a virtual white board. A phone’s camera can track a wand for drawing, or the phone itself can be used to control the cursor. Multiple users can collaborate and draw on the same canvas.
Hani said “The Airchalk idea was entirely my brother’s. He just whipped out his phone and started imitating what a person would do with this app and I understood it immediately. I didn’t think it was possible for us to do it in 24 hours, but all the other ideas we had paled in comparison to this one. I am glad my brother is crazy and confident, or none of this would have happened.”
Hani and Islam received the official prize of $500 Amazon gift certificates but also a summer internship at Facebook. The two are currently interns at State Farm in the University Research Park.
Mark Zuckerberg said that team members Islam and Hani Sharabash had an “interesting vision of how the app could be used in the future, though since there is the option to collaboratively draw, I thought you’d allow users to invite their friends.”
The team of brothers decided to enter the Illinois competition as a learning experience, to hang out more often, and for fun, with no expectation of winning. Their initial idea at the Illinois competition was to expand on their idea of texting song requests to Grooveshark, and by the end of the competition Hani and Islam had a great start on a cool product and also a win.
“The competition at Illinois completely took us by surprise when we won, which then led to the competition at Facebook. During the Hackathon at Facebook we had a vision of what we wanted to do, and no back-up plan, so it was do or die. We put the pressure on ourselves, and ran into road blocks, but we always took a step back and consulted with one another,” said Islam.
The second Hackathon proved to be more intense and competitive. The team had less time to work on each idea and also faced a setback prior to the competition as well.
“We had a good idea of the product we wanted, but not a great understanding of how to do all the parts. A couple days before the Hackathon our planned design fell through completely, we panicked and found something else that would work in its place,” said Hani.
Hani and Islam helped keep each other’s spirits up and only had to communicate during critical times. They both fell into their roles naturally and moved forward as a team. An alumnus from the University of Illinois, Dan, served as an advisor for Hani and Islam as well.
The Hackathon at the Facebook headquarters was a hectic, but fun atmosphere for the Sharabash brothers, who were completely immersed into the Facebook culture during the competition. Facebook engineers were on hand to led advice, the great food and snacks were plentiful, and MTV was there shooting a documentary as well.
“We talked to the camera several times and had to do a little bit of acting too,” says Islam, “We were even asked to ‘re-do that hug’ by the cameramen.”
But of course the competition was not all play and no work. The team ran into many challenges along the way during both competitions. The teams at the Facebook Hackathon were not able to access openCV to build on their phones, which is what the Sharabash team initially wanted to use.
“Two nights before flying out we stayed up really late, and the night before the competition I only got 45 minutes of sleep because I was researching other libraries,” says Islam.
The team did not have much experience using tech, the augmented reality library, or node.js prior to the competition. They had to dig deep into the augmented reality library to find coordinates that worked for them.
“Near the end of the competition we were trying to make trackers, and were having trouble making our own, and didn’t have enough time to learn how to do it right so we just hacked things together. Name of the game right?” says Islam.
The team was forced to learn new concepts quickly, and had to just jump in and “start breaking stuff instead of reading too much, which can be uncomfortable,” says Hani. However, amidst all of these challenges there lies the pressure of time.
“I work best in high pressure, time limited environments, so all night hackathons are the perfect microcosm for bringing out the best coding in me. The sense of accomplishment after a night of intense coding can’t really be matched,” said Hani.
At the end of the competition Hani and Islam Sharabash emerged victorious and are excited to further their relationships with others at Facebook and begin their internships.
The team plans to take their ideas to a new level in the future. They would like to open their concept up to developers and users in a way similar to QR codes. The grand idea from here is that all viewable reality becomes a chalkboard for which you need nothing more than your phone and your finger to write on; essentially the world is your chalkboard, all compliments of the Sharabash brothers.
The team urges others to become involved in future Facebook Hackathon competitions and leaves these words of advice to all future hackers: “Absolutely do not underestimate yourself. You are much better than you think. Be ambitious.”