2008 Woodie Awards
Illini Media
WPGU
buzz
Illio
TechnographStudent's widget wins award
Yahoo! praises digi-adaptation of slide rule
By Brittney Foreman
Posted: 4/9/07 Section: News
"For him to win at nationals was a complete long-shot," Samaranayake said. "He was going against the best universities in the nation. Those (universities) for computer science are ... as good as it gets."
Samaranayake said Schechter is good at overcoming challenges for their Web site, called Scheedule.com, which they developed with four other students, and shows possible class schedule combinations once students enter their courses into the site.
"The algorithms that select what are valid schedules, he came up with every line (of code)," Samaranayake said. "That's the most complicated part of the Web site."
Schechter also came up with a map feature that shows students the buildings in which their classes are located. He has expanded Scheedule to the University of Indiana and is currently working on it for the University of Arizona.
"He kind of just jumped into it on his own and figured it all out," Samaranayake said.
Schechter was also on his own when he created the slide rule widget and received a $2,500 check and a trophy at the competition in Sunnyvale.
The trophy is seven inches tall. Engraved on the front in child-like handwriting are the letters spelling "hacker" in an uneven, off-center arc.
Schechter said that the trophy fits the style of the Hack Day competition, where one has to throw something together really quickly. In the fall, Yahoo! gave the competitors at the University a month to create a "hack" that involved some sort of Yahoo! product, service or Application Programming Interface. Students were then given about 90 seconds to present their projects in front of judges on the big day.
"You're just supposed to make something, whatever you can imagine," Schechter said.
Schechter said that for the Sunnyvale competition, the judges at Yahoo! gave the competitors the opportunity to make adjustments to their projects. He said that he didn't make any changes though because he was happy with it.
Schechter's slide rule widget is available online at the Yahoo! Widget Gallery. His widget includes four different types of slide rules. For those who have never used a slide rule, the widget comes complete with a tutorial. Almost 10,000 people have downloaded it from the Yahoo! site so far.
This summer, Schechter will fly back out to Sunnyvale to be an intern at Yahoo!. In the future, he said that he would like to be a web developer.
"I want to be able to work on a project where I really have a lot of control (and) where I can program some of my own ideas into whatever I'm working on," Schechter said.
Kumar, Schechter's previous instructor, said that he hopes Schechter had gotten some of his ideas for the competition from the computer architecture course he taught.
"It's pretty clear that he's one of the top students in terms of being able to think things through," Kumar said. "His clarity of thinking is actually very, very special."
Samaranayake said Schechter is good at overcoming challenges for their Web site, called Scheedule.com, which they developed with four other students, and shows possible class schedule combinations once students enter their courses into the site.
"The algorithms that select what are valid schedules, he came up with every line (of code)," Samaranayake said. "That's the most complicated part of the Web site."
Schechter also came up with a map feature that shows students the buildings in which their classes are located. He has expanded Scheedule to the University of Indiana and is currently working on it for the University of Arizona.
"He kind of just jumped into it on his own and figured it all out," Samaranayake said.
Schechter was also on his own when he created the slide rule widget and received a $2,500 check and a trophy at the competition in Sunnyvale.
The trophy is seven inches tall. Engraved on the front in child-like handwriting are the letters spelling "hacker" in an uneven, off-center arc.
Schechter said that the trophy fits the style of the Hack Day competition, where one has to throw something together really quickly. In the fall, Yahoo! gave the competitors at the University a month to create a "hack" that involved some sort of Yahoo! product, service or Application Programming Interface. Students were then given about 90 seconds to present their projects in front of judges on the big day.
"You're just supposed to make something, whatever you can imagine," Schechter said.
Schechter said that for the Sunnyvale competition, the judges at Yahoo! gave the competitors the opportunity to make adjustments to their projects. He said that he didn't make any changes though because he was happy with it.
Schechter's slide rule widget is available online at the Yahoo! Widget Gallery. His widget includes four different types of slide rules. For those who have never used a slide rule, the widget comes complete with a tutorial. Almost 10,000 people have downloaded it from the Yahoo! site so far.
This summer, Schechter will fly back out to Sunnyvale to be an intern at Yahoo!. In the future, he said that he would like to be a web developer.
"I want to be able to work on a project where I really have a lot of control (and) where I can program some of my own ideas into whatever I'm working on," Schechter said.
Kumar, Schechter's previous instructor, said that he hopes Schechter had gotten some of his ideas for the competition from the computer architecture course he taught.
"It's pretty clear that he's one of the top students in terms of being able to think things through," Kumar said. "His clarity of thinking is actually very, very special."
The Daily Illini encourages on-topic discussion through article commenting on its articles and blogs. It is our policy not to delete any comments based upon political or ideological point of view. However, we reserve the right to remove comments that are abusive, off-topic or use excessive foul language.
The posting of copyrighted material, including any and all content for which you are not the author, is illegal under Federal intellectual property laws. Such activity will not be tolerated. Comments containing copyrighted material will be removed, and continued violation of copyright law is grounds for being banned completely from commenting on DailyIllini.com.
If you feel any post meets these conditions or merits review, please e-mail our editors at meonline@dailyillini.com.
Viewing Comments 1 - 1 of 1
V. Foreman
posted 4/11/07 @ 2:52 AM CST
I think the story was a very interesting one. Congratulations Greg!
Post a Comment