MURFREESBORO, Tenn. (WTVF) — This is neither the first, nor the last time, you'll find a group of college students that have commandeered a classroom, cramming on a deadline.
"So did we decide on this layout?" said one student. "If it still looks good I don’t think they’ll mind," said another.
But this isn't for a class or a grade. It's an annual college competition at Middle Tennessee State University, called Hack MT. "This is a group project with different parts and different teams," said Eze Amadi, one of the participants.
It starts on Friday night, when competitors divide into teams and come up with their project. Eze's group decided to partner up with a representative from shoe manufacturer, Genesco.
"What we’re trying to develop is an application that takes people with two different sized feet and match them with the opposite. So if you have a left 10 and a right 9 you’re going to find the opposite," said Cory McDermaid, who works for Genesco.
For the next 48 hours, they build an app from scratch. Students have the option to even sleep inside MTSU's Science Building if that's what it takes. This group split into three different sub teams. One group focused on the user experience, one squad focused on the inner workings of the app and a final pairing focused on marketing.
By Sunday morning, each team has to be ready to present it to a panel of judges an their fellow competitors. "Just like you would do for a presentation in business, what are the questions they’re going to ask? What are your answers going to be? What it’s going to look like?" said McDermaid.
But the real grand prize may come in the form of a future job. "Logic is what we look for, right? We look for people who can logically solve problems. We can teach almost everything else, but logic and attitude are the two things that are important," said McDermaid.
With the hope, this may be the first, but not the last time, they work on this kind of project.
This year's Hack MT competition's deadline is 10 am Sunday morning.
