Our students succeed at HackYeah

HackYeah is a 24-hour hackathon open to individual participants or teams (up to six members) made up of programmers, testers, designers, and creative minds. Teams face carefully selected challenges, which they can review in advance. This year, participants could take part in 11 challenges – four open, six partner, and one in the Capture the Flag category.

Agile, Determined, Effective

Two WUT students – Filip Kiernozek and Piotr Mackiewicz – left their competitors no chance in the "Bieg przez Życie" ("Race Through Life") category organised by ZUS (Social Insurance Institution). Their task was to create a simulation game. Filip studies at the Faculty of Electronics and Information Technology, and Piotr at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering. Their team, "Agile, Determined, Effective [ZUS]", was also co-created by one more person from outside WUT.

“Our team was formed only at the hackathon. We hadn’t met before, but we quickly found a common language and agreed on a shared goal – to choose the most abstract competition topic we could find and take it on. A lot of coffee, ideas, and discussions resulted in a first-place finish,” recalls Filip Kiernozek from WEiTI.

Agile, Determined, Effective during HackYeah

“In just 24 hours, we created a complete game built in React, where the player guides a character through different stages of life, striving to achieve key life goals. The aim is to manage the virtual life to maximise overall well-being – financial, health, and personal – especially before reaching retirement age. The realistic simulation lets players 'feel' the impact of their decisions almost 'firsthand', and the ability to create various life scenarios ensures that each playthrough is unique," adds the student.

KNMP Kraken – WUT Students in Action

Another WUT team, representing the Kraken Student Research Group, also took on the ZUS "Race Through Life" partner challenge and won second place. Their task was to create a simulation game for primary and secondary school students, serving as an interactive educational tool to raise awareness about life planning and personal finance.

The WUT team included students from two faculties: Zuzanna Koc and Natalia Nawrot from the Faculty of Architecture, and Aleksandra Gwiazda, Radosław Kostrzewski, Jakub Kowieski, and Wiktor Pytlewski from the Faculty of Electronics and Information Technology.

KN Kraken during HackYeah

The team recalls the hackathon as intense 24 hours full of challenges and great satisfaction. Despite moments of doubt and lack of sleep, their determination and mutual support kept them going until the end. The team was mentored by Olga Sobolewska, a lecturer at WUT, whose guidance proved invaluable at crucial stages of the project.

“After the competition, we felt great – though we had to catch up on some sleep first! Apart from the joy of taking second place, we’re most proud of the experience of working in an interdisciplinary team, where everyone could use their strengths – from programming and interface design to project management,” says Wiktor Pytlewski from KNMP Kraken. “The competition gave us valuable experience working under time pressure and in conditions close to real commercial projects. We learned how to make quick decisions, divide tasks efficiently, and create a solution that can genuinely help young people manage their personal finances.”

Success at HackYeah marks another important milestone for the Kraken Design Thinking Student Research Group, which recently received a rector’s grant for the 2025/2026 academic year for the project “Kraken HackForce – Innovation Teams as the University’s Showcase.” The group is currently recruiting new members interested in innovation design, prototyping, and participation in national and international hackathons. Students of all faculties are welcome – what matters most is an open mind and the willingness to develop design competences.

The group’s supervisors are Mariusz Kaleta, PhD, (Faculty of Electronics and Information Technology) and Katarzyna Bargieł, MSc (Faculty of Geodesy and Cartography).

KN Kraken during HackYeah

Our Student in an Inter-University Team

Adam Sulik, a Computer Science and Information Systems student at the Faculty of Mathematics and Information Science, participated in HackYeah as part of the MIKO x C(offe)++ team from the Jagiellonian University. The team took second place in the “Journey Radar” challenge, organised by Małopolska Innowacje. Their task was to develop an application for managing information about delays in public transport, both rail and bus.

“In response to this challenge, we created Lajkonik – an application that uses the latest machine learning models to analyse data and predict delays. Our goal was to combine official sources with user-generated data to create a more reliable and up-to-date communication system,” explains Adam Sulik.

Adam Sulik and MIKO x C(offe)++ team at HackYeah

The main features of Lajkonik include:

• passenger-reported disruptions with a reward system for reliable input,
• a user information verification mechanism,
• delay prediction based on historical and real-time data, and
• real-time notifications tailored to the user’s location.

The interface supports integration with transport operator systems, while an interactive map displays current disruptions and suggests alternative routes, significantly improving the comfort of public transport users.

“In the project, I was responsible for developing and implementing the fastest-route search system in dynamically changing urban conditions. My task was to design an algorithm that analyses traffic, delays, and disruptions in real time, then suggests the most optimal route for users. It was particularly challenging due to the need to integrate data from multiple sources and maintain their accuracy within seconds,” adds Adam Sulik. “I’m not sure what criteria the jury used, but I believe we stood out for the high technical sophistication of our project. Every feature we proposed was fully implemented and functional, which may have made the difference.”

This is not Adam’s first hackathon success. Recently, he and his team reached the podium in the Mastercard x SGH: BusinessData Hackathon, and since then, their project has gained significant attention. The team was invited to present their work at the 2025 Geoinformatics Researchers’ Night, organised by the University of Warsaw.