Hackathon Articles

We’re curious people by nature. And we love to teach others what we’ve learned. So explore our blog to gain fresh insights from our expertise in areas ranging from culture to AI.

SEP Wins TechPoint’s 2024 Innovation Service Partner of the Year Mira Award

SEP Recognized as Indiana’s Top Innovation Service Partner, Winning TechPoint’s Prestigious Mira Award Westfield, Indiana - SEP has been named the Innovation Service Partner of the Year by TechPoint at the 25th annual Mira Awards. The Mira Awards, Indiana’s largest…
Read Full Post

Professional Development Hack: Keep it fun with a company hackathon!

It’s no secret that we love our hackathons at SEP. These semi-annual weekends are one of our favorite traditions for so many reasons, including the fact that they are chock-full of professional development learning opportunities. With any combination of experience and expertise from our team, we find that working together to tackle personal projects or […]
Read Full Post
SEP team listening at hackathon share-out

Unleashing Creativity: Hackathons & The Magic of Innovation

Imagine a place where makers come together—full of excitement, energy, and snacks—to build whatever their hearts desire. Solutions that address pesky functions or non-existent tools to improve our work and personal lives. It could be anything, from video game upgrades to new business ideas to figuring out how to more efficiently and securely share internal […]
Read Full Post
Software developer in SEP t-shirt examines code on computer screen

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 culture and for a recap of what projects we tackled during our Winter 2023 Hackathon session. Three Reasons We ❤ Hackathons at SEP Besides the obvious things like the fact […]
Read Full Post
Person looking at their reflection in a water-filled pothole. Photo by Marc-Olivier Jodoin on Unsplash

How I Used Indianapolis Pothole Data To Navigate My First SEP Hackathon

In March 2022, two senior SEP engineers and I built a Hackathon project together. In brief, the project aimed to give users a report ranking their routes to work based on the number of potholes they would encounter along the way. We had a great time, and were able to reach our goals. The project […]
Read Full Post
person with painted nails tapping smartphone screen on the table

3 Reasons to Use Storybook for Your React Native Project

I adopted a dog several months ago. A roly-poly Shar Pei mix. The decision to take him home was easy. Navigating the adoption process was not. The UX of adopting a dog online is haphazard. You find the dog on your pet adoption app, and you send a message to the shelter in the app […]
Read Full Post
SEP Hackathon Pitch Session

2022 Summer Hackathon Recap

We were thrilled to have our SEP Summer 2022 Hackathon in our new building and to be back in person for the event! Our hackathon is an internal event where we invite SEP makers to participate for the weekend – anyone with an interest within our walls can join the fun. We see a mix […]
Read Full Post

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 context. Sector Director Sector Director is an on-going (as of writing) project to create my own 3D renderer for the 1993 game Doom. There is nothing terribly novel about this – tons of […]
Read Full Post
teal and blue wall tile

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. Marrying the Old with the New Tiledriver was an attempt to create levels for the classic 1992 game Wolfenstein 3D using machine learning. I thought this would be a fun challenge since I didn’t […]
Read Full Post
close up of various craft supplies

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 of a staple of SEP’s Hackathons, I’d like to highlight some of my philosophies around personal projects and the value I’ve gotten out of them. I worked on all the projects […]
Read Full Post