Hack the North 2024: Leading the Future of Indoor Mapping with AI

On the weekend of September 13th to 15th, students, developers, and innovators from around the globe came together for the highly anticipated Hack the North 2024—Canada’s biggest hackathon. Hosted at the University of Waterloo, this 36-hour event challenged participants to build, code, and create their next big idea. The result? A showcase of cutting-edge projects that left judges and attendees inspired.

As proud sponsors of Hack the North, Mappedin had the pleasure of witnessing firsthand the remarkable energy and creativity that these innovators poured into their projects. From prototyping to coding, and even some impressive 3D printing, the results were nothing short of extraordinary.

Innovation in Action

Imagine a campus building taken over by more than 1,000 participants, vendors, and mentors, fueled by caffeine and creativity, coding into the night to bring their ideas to life. That was the atmosphere at Hack the North.

Teams formed quickly, ideas flowed freely, and everyone, from first-time hackers to seasoned developers, worked tirelessly to turn their concepts into reality.

With no shortage of coffee, snacks, and determination, participants built everything from smart devices to voice-assisted AI-powered tools, showcasing how far technology has come—and how much further it can still go. Despite the time crunch, the weekend was filled with excitement, creativity, and plenty of late-night breakthroughs!

Sponsor Winners Spotlight—Best Use of Mappedin SDK

This year’s hackathon saw a number of outstanding projects, but three in particular stood out to us that made the best use of our SDK, each taking home a sponsored prize for their innovation and execution.

1. SecureStep

Inspiration: The team behind SecureStep recognized the challenges faced by the elderly population with mobility issues, particularly the dangers of falls. They aimed to create a solution that provides immediate notification to care staff of seniors by applying advanced technology and APIs to locate them indoors and assist them.

What it does: SecureStep is a smart walking cane designed for seniors in care homes, responsible for notifying caregivers when a fall has occurred. The cane's built-in sensors detect falls and transmit the exact geolocation of the incident. Paired with the power of the Mappedin SDK, the geolocation is published to an in-depth floor plan of the facility, alerting caregivers of the incident and providing the best indoor route to reach the individual. Communication over Wi-Fi ensures urgent care, and the system displays real-time data on maps to facilitate quick response.

How it was built: SecureStep was developed using various technologies. The mechanical enclosure was designed in SolidWorks to house components like an ESP-8266 microcontroller, a battery pack, an MPU6050 accelerometer/gyro sensor, and an RGB LED. The microcontroller transmits sensor data to a React webpage via Wi-Fi, processing acceleration data to verify falls. It also uses the Google Cloud Geolocation API to triangulate its position. The React webpage receives and displays data, including a Mappedin map of the facility, showing the location and shortest route to the individual in need of assistance.

Project Details

SecureStep (& Demo Video) by Kordian Mazurkiewicz, Josh Magder, Aidan Hynes

2. Rex

Inspiration: Inspired by the lengthy and resource-intensive process of training guide dogs, the team envisioned a robotic companion that could guide individuals and communicate effectively. Rex was conceived as a wayfinding robot dog that combines robotics with cutting-edge AI to facilitate the next generation of accessibility support in places like malls, hospitals, and events.

What it does: Rex is an AI-powered, voice-interactive robot dog that listens to user requests through a mobile device and guides them to desired locations within a building. For example, if a user says, "I'm feeling hungry, take me to a cafe" Rex will lead them to a nearby coffee shop. Along the way, Rex detects and avoids obstacles, focusing on accessibility and user convenience.

How it was built: On the software side, the team used VoiceFlow for voice interaction and Mappedin for indoor navigation. They created a mobile-friendly web application for human-computer interaction, handling speech-to-text and text-to-speech functions, and making API requests. The robot communicates with a cloud database (Supabase) to coordinate actions. On the hardware side, they used a Raspberry Pi, sensors (gyroscope, accelerometer, ultrasonic sensor), and DC motors. The mechanical design involved 3D printing a dog-shaped cover and assembling wheels and drive train components to resemble a robotic dog.

Project Details

Rex (& Demo Video) by Siha Pyo, Jonathan Shanmuganantham, Navtaj Hundal, Daniel Dupuis

3. LooGuessr

Inspiration: As first-year students, the team experienced the challenges of navigating a new campus. They wanted to ease the transition for other students by helping them learn more about their university environment in a fun and engaging way.

What it does: Drawing inspiration from the popular GeoGuessr game, LooGuessr (as in Waterloo) is a social media app that allows students to share daily images while on campus and challenges other users to accurately guess their location. After making a guess, points are given based on location accuracy. A path is drawn to visually show the distance from the actual location to the guessed location. While fun and quirky, this project also highlighted the potential for gamification in everyday apps, making it a crowd favorite at the event.

How it was built: The team used the Mappedin SDK to display user locations and help identify different campus areas. They developed a mobile website using React.js, with Express and Node.js for the backend, and MongoDB Atlas as the database. The app facilitates sharing and guessing images, leveraging detailed indoor maps to enhance the user experience.

Project Details

LooGuessr by Jonathan Zhu, Shougan Gu, Saarujan Sathees, Naman Biyani

Runner-Up: PathSense

Inspiration: Motivated by personal connections to visually impaired family members, the team sought to address the challenges faced by visually impaired individuals navigating indoor spaces. While outdoor navigation technologies have advanced, indoor environments remain difficult to navigate without assistance.

What it does: PathSense is a voice-centric indoor navigation assistant designed to enhance mobility and independence for visually impaired individuals. It provides accessible, spoken navigation guidance in indoor spaces, offering features such as voice-controlled interaction, real-time object detection, scene description, precise indoor routing using Mappedin's technology, and contextual information about nearby points of interest.

How it was built: PathSense integrates multiple cutting-edge technologies. Voiceflow manages voice interactions, while a computer vision pipeline handles object detection and scene analysis using tools like Detectron and GPT-4 Vision. Data management is handled by a Convex database, and semantic search is performed using Cohere's Rerank API. Indoor mapping and routing are provided by the Mappedin SDK. Speech processing uses a Groq model based on OpenAI's Whisper for speech-to-text and Unreal Engine for text-to-speech. The system processes visual information, understands user requests, and provides spoken guidance in real-time.

Project Details

PathSense (& Demo Video) by Ameya Jadhav, Jacob Rubenstein, Connor Fogarty, Krish Maniar 

Mappedin as a Proud Sponsor 

Our team enjoyed mentoring participants, offering technical support, and sharing our passion for creating indoor mapping solutions. It's events like these that remind us of the importance of fostering innovation and supporting the tech community.

We want to extend our heartfelt congratulations to all the participants, not just the winners. Your hard work and creativity are truly inspiring. We look forward to seeing how these projects evolve and hope to collaborate with some of you in the future.

See the Hack The North map we built for attendees to find their way and for hackers to use in their projects.

You can also check out all the submitted projects using Mappedin Pro and SDK!

A big thank you to the organizers and volunteers of Hack the North for putting together such a phenomenal event. We are already looking forward to next year's hackathon and the new ideas it will bring.

Stay Connected

If you're interested in learning more about Mappedin and how indoor mapping can enhance your projects, feel free to reach out or explore our developer resources. Remember to stay connected with us on our Community Forum! For big announcements, future events, and career opportunities, follow us on LinkedIn.

Want to join the fun? Make a map in minutes! Sign up today and start mapping for free at app.mappedin.com/signup.

Until then, happy hacking!