This year's NUS Maritime Hackathon sucked balls. |
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Overall Experience: A total waste of time. I wouldn’t sign up ever again, not even for a million dollars. Frankly, I am amazed by the teams that managed to obtain any tangible results at all; thank God at least the KEY SNAGS Information Poorly Disseminated: Announcements were dumped in lengthy paragraphs on Telegram, thus making it near impossible to discern pertinent details. Critical stuff, like the need for a thumb drive to present solutions if selected as a finalist, were conveniently left out ENTIRELY. To make matters worse, finalists were announced on the spot without prior notice. Utter Disrespect for Participants: Teams were threatened with disqualification if even one member missed the training session predating the actual competition, the reminder itself being dispatched only one day before. On top of that, the hackathon itself was scheduled on a school day, with no advice or consideration given whatsoever for participants who have classes to attend therein. Additionally, a finalist shall be disqualified if the entire team fails to turn up. (which many teams eventually didn't, probably because they have had enough of this bullshit lol). Mistakes, Mistakes Everywhere: Essential instructions came buried in a buggy, raw HTML file participants were forced to compile and debug just to get the ball rolling, this when the competition claims to be BEGINNER-FRIENDLY. The instructions themselves btw would make you want to gnaw your arm off - riddled with unclear phrasing, typos, incorrect step orders, nonsensical math etc. Besides, the so-called "training session" turned out darn unhelpful, tainted with irrelevant human chatter whilst completely glossing over maritime terminology deemed crucial for making thorough sense of the challenge's requirements. Unrealistic Expectations: The presiding judges couldn't articulate their own judging criteria coherently, more laughably they appeared visibly stumped by the data sets issued. Yet they had the gall to inquire whether a certain group managed to test its proposed AI solution within a stipulated 24-hour timeframe. Worse still, they strayed off course way too often, needlessly bombarding participants with niche maritime-related questions, beginner-friendly my arse x2. Conclusion: This event constituted an enormous incubus from start to finish, ultimately throwing NUS' supposed status as a “world-class” institution into serious doubt. Such disorganization as well as a blatant lack of empathy for participants reeked nothing short of staggering, to say the least. I am livid, and rightfully so. Shame on you NUS, SHAME ON YOU. |
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