JumboHack: Down the Rabbit Hole
The weekend of February 22-23rd, I helped organize one of the most rewarding experiences of my Tufts career: the 2nd annual hackathon, JumboHack!
What’s a hackathon, you might ask? It’s an event where people collaborate to code solutions to certain problems in a short period of time. You could have attendees there solely to learn about new frameworks or innovative ways industry experts utilize tech in their field, or competing for tracks to address problems in, say, education or simply utilizing a certain technology the best. It’s so wonderful to see the result of everyone’s hard work and creativity following hours of brainstorming.
Planning started back in April 2024. Having a foundation laid already by the previous JumboHack, we knew we wanted to make this year’s hackathon better, not just for current Tufts students but also students in the greater Boston community and beyond. We decided the hackathon theme would be a whimsical journey down the Alice in Wonderland rabbit hole, and laid out 5 different tracks participants could submit projects to. As Head of External Involvement on the team, I recruited faculty and alumni judges, and helped plan out different workshops that clubs and judges were going to host.
On the first day, us organizers were up bright and early, pushing past our sleep deprivation to greet participants from 20+ schools, some coming from as far away as New York, at the Joyce Cummings Center (JCC). At the opening ceremony, President Sunil Kumar stopped by to give a brief speech! Teams scattered to all over the JCC to begin cracking away, only stopping for lunch, dinner, and snacks. Workshop hosts enthused about How to Choose a Tech Stack and Web Scraping, occasionally peppering attendees with T-shirts. While we ran around, taking photos and answering questions, slowly, the night wound down. However, devoted teams stayed in their spots, eyes glued on their screens, fingers clacking with a frenzy.
The second day came around, and participants trickled in slowly to jump right back in. Workshops continued, featuring the gamut from Intro to Project Management to Navigating Your Early Career. In the afternoon, we had a visit from a comfort dog, Pepper! The clock counted down, and each team hit the last key to press submit with a satisfied sigh. Finally, the judges arrived and deliberation began, with each group proudly showing off their creation, while attendees mingled and looked on with joy in their peers’ work. As we closed out the hackathon, announcing 5 track winners and 1 overall winner, there was triumphant applause for all that happened in the last 36 hours.
In the end, we had 300 participants and 39 projects submitted - double the number compared to last year. It was so inspiring to see all the teams congratulating each other and looking excited to see what they all built. While I’ll be graduating, I wish all the best for JumboHack 2026. And if you, prospective CS major, want to come to Tufts, I highly encourage you to sign up for JumboHack! Go create something that will change the world.