We believe in giving our employees the freedom and space to think and create in an environment that empowers them to innovate. To celebrate this, we hosted a Hackathon Afterwork event at our office a couple of weeks ago – an evening dedicated to networking and collaborating with colleagues, students and friends who all share the same passion for innovation and programming. The mission of the Hackathon challenge? To create the best functioning software solution – within only two hours.

At our second Hackathon event, the contestants were challenged to develop and program an AI character and implement it in a simpler version of the classic video game Bomberman. To sum it up, it was two hours of creative thinking, inspiring teamwork and, of course, candy and snacks to keep the energy up and running! In the group of tech-savvy developers and engineers who signed up for the event were our software engineers, Philip Rasko and Hannes Jubro Kool.

"I think the Hackathon event at Kollmorgen is a fun opportunity to team up with someone you don't know or usually don't work with and cooperate to find the right solution. It’s a great way to test your skills and knowledge. I also appreciate meeting students and introducing them to our company. ", says Hannes.

The Hackathon event is open to anyone who wants to join, whether you are an experienced engineer or new to programming. When it comes down to it, the most important factor in these kinds of code challenges is a creative mind.

"Programming has little to do with coding, actually. It's more about the creative ideas behind it, which become clear in these kinds of challenges. I would say that coding is the easier part. The real challenge is to come up with an idea and prioritize the functions you want to implement before the time is up. It's a rewarding feeling to get an idea, implement it in a couple of minutes and get it to work better than you first thought it would. ", says Philip.

To be creative and innovative while being under the pressure of time sure is a challenge. But after attending two Hackathon events at the Kollmorgen office, Philip and Hannes now have some tricks in their sleeves.

"If I would give a piece of advice to someone who is curious to attend our next Hackathon event, it would be to choose a programming language you know by heart so you can focus on testing and verifying the solutions continuously as you write the code. You can come up with all kinds of strategies and functions, but when you only have two hours to complete your ideas, it’s important to prioritize the verification of the solutions. ", Philip continues.

During the last couple of weeks, the Hackathon has become one of the most popular conversation topics here at the office, and it’s safe to say that the event was a success – and certainly not our last one! According to Philip and Hannes, meeting new people and seeing the team’s joint engagement for the code challenge was the best part of the event.

"After the event, we continued to discuss how it went, what we could have done differently, and so on. It’s a popular happening here at Kollmorgen that sparks engagement and brings us closer together as a team. ", says Hannes.

Are you interested in writing some code, networking with other software engineers, and challenging your tech skills with us? Stay tuned for our next Hackathon Afterwork event!