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Braydon

82 and sunny. Gotta love it.

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Sunday afternoon, classes at Lehigh have ended, studying is well underway, Heather is just about out of the woods for her crazy busy time and Meera had a chance to swing a little.

Kyle went with Heather to an event and Owen is shooting hoops. 

All good. 

Lehigh 2015 Hackathon

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Posted by Braydon~

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If you know what this means, you should have been there.

A few weeks ago, Jon came by to see the kids and hang out for a few minutes. While he loves the kids and is just a great all around guy, he also happens to be working toward his masters in computer science and is super smart.

For the last few months I’ve been toying with an idea for a piece of software that I’d like to see turned into a business but wasn’t sure how to move it forward in a reasonable way.

As he was sitting there, it dawned on me – we could run a hackathon here at Lehigh!  I looked at Jon and suggested the idea – he immediately loved it.

Jon mentors some of the students.  Or maybe he's just cheating?

Jon mentors some of the students. Or maybe he’s just cheating?

But wait.  If you don’t know what a hackathon is, this might be a bit weird. Check here for a primer, but in a nutshell it’s one or two day event in which a bunch of software programmers get together and try to develop something cool.

Then there is the "please, please work!" everyone has had before.

Then there is the “oh man, come on and work!” everyone has had before.

There are a lot of reasons to run a hackathon, and in this case, pretty much all the criteria you could want were hit:  student growth and experience opportunity, tie-in to residential fellows program, community building with a local business, opportunity for student internships, and overall innovation programming at the university.  What’s not to love?

There's lots to love about a Lehigh hackathon - maybe mostly hacking with good friends.

There’s lots to love about a Lehigh hackathon – maybe mostly hacking with good friends.

It took us a few weeks, but we pulled it off.  Or more accurately, Jon pulled it off.  This guy has incredible leadership skills. Pulling people together at one of the toughest times in the semester is no mean feat. And bringing in Professor Femister for additional guidance was the icing on the cake. Watch out, Jon is going to go far.

None of this would have happened – ever – if we were not living on campus.  Who knew that magic like this would be possible.

Thus, for about 10 hours this past Saturday we had a dozen or so CS students hacking away at a cool concept for an interesting piece of software.  While there were bumps, a bit of anxiety, a surprising large amount of pizza consumed, and some prizes given out, the big win was seeing these amazing students come up with creative, innovative ideas and work together on teams.

I would be remiss without a shout out to Heather and the kids for hanging in there for the hackathon. Heather managed to do both boy’s hair (OMG how did that happen – that is a TRUE hackathon) and braid about 10 micro braids into Meera’s hair.

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So many times during the day I stood there seeing the future and feeling a wave of excitement for what is to come. Be sure to check out the article by an up and coming journalism major in the Brown and White!

Lehigh Hackathon 2015!

Lehigh Hackathon 2015!

We are already looking forward to the 2nd annual Lehigh Hackathon.  We’re taking what we learned here and making next year even better!

Hackathon

Commitment to hopscotch 

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This afternoon before we sat down to dinner as a family, Meera and I had a chance to build a fairy house and play a little hopscotch. It was 74, sunny and wonderful.  

We are lucky and I deeply appreciate that luck. 

First AAU tournament 

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And the first championship winners!

  

More to come on how we decided to let them play elite club basketball and travel all around for the tournaments, but for now we are just reveling in the win!