LAUTECH students hack their way through the Google Hash Code 2017

A cross section of the participants

It was an evening of brain racking, hacking and fun as Lautech students came together on Thursday, February 24, to compete in the qualification round of the Google Hash Code 2017.

Fifty-seven students from several departments in the institution registered to participate in the event, a significant increase compared to the previous year which had barely half of the present number.

The event which was held at the 'Old ICT' building on LAUTECH campus started around 6:30pm with nine teams of four students each.

Although it started out quite rocky, with the students having to deal with getting a stable Internet connection to download the challenge, within a few minutes, it was all resolved -- and the hacking commenced.

While some of the participants could not complete the challenge on deadline (the deadline of the contest was 10:30 pm), they, however, acknowledged that this year's challenge was much easier than those of the previous years.

Abraham, one of the participants, said "this year's question wasn't as challenging as last year's. We have more persons participating this year and people seem to find their way around understanding and thinking of a solution a lot easier than the last year."

At the end of the contest, a LAUTECH team by the name 'cod3it', was able to complete the challenge and emerged with 72913 points, placing them at number 19 on the National scoreboard.
Despite their different backgrounds and areas of discipline, the participants displayed an astounding level of team work in the course of the contest.

According to Google Students Ambassador, Iyanu Adams, the number of students who participated this year doubled that of 2016, which of course shows the increase in students interest in ICT and coding.

The Google Hash Code is an annual programming competition that has students from around the world solve real-world problems using their knowledge of computer programming.

The Thursday event was the qualification round and teams that qualify will participate in the final round which will hold at Paris, France, on April 1, 2017.

Reporting: Busari Azeezat, Campus News Editor
Editing: Okike Samuel, Science & Technology Editor

Union of Campus Journalists, LAUTECH