This past weekend, Feb. 24-25, Rowan Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) hosted the 3rd Annual ProfHacks event in the Engineering Hall. This event brought over 200 hundred hackers from the university as well as high school students to use their skills in a 24-hour hackathon.  This years theme was ‘Smart Cities of Tomorrow’ and hackers were asked to connect various aspects of cities and make them “smart.”

The lead organizers of this event were sophomore mechanical engineering major and President of the IEEE Jason Fisch, sophomore electrical and computer engineering major and Vice President of the IEEE Nikola Kosaric and sophomore electrical and computer engineering major and an IEEE Philadelphia Section Student Representative DJ Stahlberger.

The winning team, Ray Linden, Mike Moore, Connor Snee and Nick Calzaretto, submitted a project called ParkingPi. The project uses an Amazon Alexa and computer vision algorithms to monitor parking lot use in real time. Users can simply ask Alexa how many cars are in a parking lot and will receive an accurate number.

The second place team, Skyler Ellenberg, Adrianna Wenz, Chaoyi Zha and Emily Kim, submitted a project called Sprinkle, which is a smart irrigation system that tracks soil moisture, generates water usage and irrigation data and controls sprinkler usage based on needs to conserve water and ensure proper irrigation.

The third-place team of Sahit Penmatcha, Akshit Dewan and Andrew Kemeklis submitted a project called Munch, which connects restaurants with customers, allowing them to sell otherwise unsold food at a discounted price at specified times. The idea is to cut down on food waste in major cities.

Additional reporting by Matt Kass.

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