Major League Hacking

Who knew studying could be this dangerous (and fun)? 🎯

Meet Bullet Brain, a brilliant hackathon project by Jaylen Cheung and Isaac Chan that turns group study sessions into an interactive game. We’ve all felt the burnout of solo studying, so this team built a way to make community learning more engaging.

The setup is wild: a motorized turret scans the room like a game of Duck Duck Goose. While it rotates, the software—powered by the Cohere API—processes PDF study notes into a series of questions. When the turret locks onto you, you have to answer a question correctly or face the “consequences” (getting shot by the turret!).

It’s a perfect example of how hardware and AI can come together to solve a common problem like study fatigue with a bit of humor and a lot of creativity.

Read more about their build here: https://devpost.com/software/bullet-brain

Meet Tachigurasu: The desktop companion that uses “emotional manipulation” to fix your posture! 📉➡️🧍

Computer science students Jieruei Chang and Alexander Liang realized that standard phone notifications are too easy to swipe away when you’re deep in a coding session. Their solution? A 3D-printed, AI-powered “Tamagotchi” whose life depends on how you sit.

Using ML models and a built-in camera, Tachigurasu monitors your posture in real-time. If you start slouching, it gets angry. if you keep slouching, it dies. 💀 It’s a hilarious and high-stakes way to ensure you aren’t a human pretzel by the end of the day. Plus, if you stay at your desk too long, it’ll remind you to finally “touch grass.”

This is a perfect example of how hardware and AI can come together to solve the everyday problems of the developer lifestyle!

Read more about their build here: https://devpost.com/software/tachigurasu