The Maker Hackathon program of 2018 WIC (Women in Engineering Intensive Course), which was organized by our university’s PRIME Project Group and supervised by the Basic Education Center for Engineering, was held at the center auditorium of the Queen Sunheon Building on campus for 2 days from Nov. 23 ~ 24.

Maker Hackathon is a program of competing ideas for solving the current issues in the community by forming converged teams of on-campus students. By pursuing convergence of humanities and science technology through incorporation of technologies related to the 4th industrial revolution, the program was prepared to cultivate ▲ creative problem-solving skills, ▲ converged thinking skills, and ▲ cooperative self-control.

At the competition, a total of 24 teams (97 students) composed of 4 members per team were formed by students from diverse majors through team building. Among them, the Sookmyung Women＇s University President’s Award, which is the grand prize, went to the “Apple Mint” team composed of HyeonJu Shim (Business Administration ‘16), Ha-rim Cha (Environmental Design ‘17), JeongEun Lee (IT Engineering ‘18), and HyeonSoen Lee (IT Engineering ‘18). The Apple Mint team took the glory of the award by designing the “Slope Safety Alarm” system, which was conceived by studying the topography of the Yongsan District and deriving the issues of parking on slopes.

The “Not So Easy(쉽지않은쉽조)” team [SuGyeong Kim (IT Engineering ‘17), DaYe Kim (IT Engineering ‘17), SiYeon Kim (IT Engineering ‘17), and JiYeop Kwon (Visual & Multimedia Design ‘17)], which took the 2nd place, developed the “Tag-type Sound Alarm for Sidewalks” that provides voice guidance on arriving buses for the hearing impaired, and the “Overflow” team [HaYeon Kim (IT Engineering ‘18), JiYeon Myeong (IT Engineering ‘18), HyeMin Yeo (IT Engineering ‘18), and HyeWon Yun (Visual & Multimedia Design ‘16)], which took the 3rd place, developed the “Hermap” that provides safety first guidance service by measuring the risk of roads taken by users. Both teams were awarded the Sookmyung Women＇s University Vice President’s Award for their achievements. 

The Director of Korea Energy Technology & Emergency Management Institute JinYeop Jeong who judged the competition said, “I am very impressed of the fact that the competition provided an opportunity for students of various backgrounds to gather and share ideas in a short period of time and contribute to the development of our community by using their knowledge and experiences,” and “I was able to witness the potential of Sookmyung Women＇s University students once again through the quality of results produced from the creative ideas of the students.”

The winner of the Sookmyung Women＇s University President’s Award, Apple Mint team, said, “We think we were able to get good results because we were able to participate without the pressures of being graded allowing us to only concentrate on the project for whole 2 days,” and “We were able to realize the highest teamwork potential through ample amount of brainstorming, idea sharing, and seamless communication with the teammates. We are all looking forward to more programs like this one in the future.”

The officials of the Basic Education Center for Engineering considered the students gaining the “I can do it” confidence, experience of synergy effect through converged teams, and increased interest in school programs as some of the most meaningful results of the program.