2023 Winter Hackathon Recap + 3 Reasons We ♥ Hackathons at SEP
SEP’s bi-annual hackathon was a full weekend of fun projects and exciting learnings. Read on to learn more about the importance of hackathons to SEP’s…
SEP Makes
We love to make things. To think through a problem, come up with a great solution, and then make it come to life. That’s why SEP Makes is special: because it brings us together for an insightful weekend of pitching, conceptualizing, and making. Not to mention some sleepless nights.
Hackathon: Pitches, products, prototypes and more
Twice a year, we come together for a weekend of pitches, conceptualization, and making.
Influenced by the Kaufmann Foundation’s Startup Weekend, SEP gathers our eager makers into our offices. Beginning early Friday night, these creative builders embark on a journey of self-discovery and a search for new skills and technologies.
The hackathon is built around the same techniques and processes found in SEP’s daily successes, with a few twists. Individuals come prepared with a software or application idea. The group votes on the best ideas, splits into teams, and begins work on creating a functioning product that can be demonstrated by the end of the 48-hour session.
Hackathon Weekend Experiences
5 Products Built During Our Hackathon That We Actually Used
When we run company hackathons we end up with quite a variety of ideas. The teams working on these projects always get something…
The Value of Personal Projects
Personal projects can be a great way to explore ideas, concepts, or frameworks before you use them on an actual work project. As somewhat…
“At 40 weeks pregnant, I was still planning on my Hackathon project—if that gives you an idea of how much I love these events! SEP Makes is such a good excuse for me to get out of the work headspace, and laugh with my fellow SEPeers. Co-building is a fun way for me to extend my SEP social circle because I get to experience how other people think and problem solve.”
Giuliana Taylor, Senior Software Engineer
Our Sandbox
Our sandbox is a place where our innovative makers get to tinker with new ideas. Sometimes these ideas turn into products, other times they stay as thought experiments – either way, we love to share them!
Explore Our Sandbox
This one’s for you, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi fans
If you’ve read Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, or even if you’ve just seen a diagram like this one
Sector Director – An Exploration into Classic Graphics Programming
This is the third post in my series on the value of personal projects. Check out the first and second posts for…
Tiledriver – Making Wolfenstein 3D Levels with Machine Learning
This is the second post in my series on the value of personal projects. See the first one for more context.…
Open source
Since we work on many projects that use open source tools and libraries, we want to return the favor when we can. Whether a library or a fully realized product, we hope the open source community takes what we’ve started and solves problems through ingenuity and imagination.
Build awesome things for fun.
Check out our current openings for your chance to make awesome things with creative, curious people.