= Find out our YH4F second edition winners! =
[ Read online: https://fsfe.org/news/2023/news-20231017-01.en.html ]
A real-time plotter for microcontrollers; a classroom quiz platform; a radio tool; a device that provides bags to pick up your dog's poo; a game engine to help non-programmers develop their ideas; and a program to search for a file on your computer by its hash. These are the six projects that won the 2023 edition of Youth Hacking 4 Freedom.
If you are into coding, whatever your level is, you want to meet other Europeans teenagers, you want to develop a project, and you want to win a cash prize, Youth Hacking 4 Freedom [1] is for you! This coding contest for young Europeans, organized by the Free Software Foundation Europe, has just closed its second edition with the Award Ceremony weekend in Brussels where the six winners had the chance to present their projects in front of their families, jury members, and after this weekend, new friends.
The winners' journey began almost a year ago, when they signed up to take part in the 2023 edition, which kicked off with six months of coding. The goal? To present a Free Software project that they had developed or improved. During this time, they met online regularly and received advice not only from experts but also from their peers. Afterwars a broad group of technology experts, the YH4F jury [2], got to evaluate the project.
After a tough judging process due to the high quality of the projects submitted, the six winners, who will receive cash prizes ranging from €4,096 to €1,024 each, are the following:
1. *Ultimate Hacker Award:* Davide Rorato for ArduPlot
2. *Elite Hacker Award:* Marlon Wolf for ClassQuiz
3. *Awesome Award:* Simon Sommer for OpenRadio
4. *Best Maker Award:* Oriol Villegas Martin for DogBag4City
5. *Best Freedom Project Award:* Marius Angermann for Artix Engine
6. *Best Power User Tool Award:* Matthias Kaak for hashfindutils
"Like last year, we were really impressed by the projects submitted, and even more so considering that we had a lot of submissions from really young teenagers. The jury had a hard time evaluating the projects, which not only includes considering if the idea can be useful for the community but also how the process was and its code quality. After this successful edition, and a really joyful weekend with the winners, their families and the jury, we cannot wait to announce the new edition soon", stated Alexander Sander, FSFE policy consultant and YH4F project manager.
Check out 2022 YH4F projects [3], winners [4] and a video about the 2022 Award Ceremony weekend [5].
== 2023 Youth Hacking 4 Freedom winners’ projects ==
=== Get a good understanding of your data with this plotter displaying it in different graphs ===
“I participated in the first edition and I didn’t win, so this year I tried again”
Davide, Ultimate Hacker Award winner ArduPlot [6] is a real-time plotter for microcontrollers that uses a custom protocol to send data to be displayed in different graphs. Normally it acts as a traditional serial console, but when a specially formatted packet is received, it is parsed and converted into different visualisations, such as heat maps or line graphs. This allows the microcontroller to choose how best to display the data it has access to. It can also specify whether or not the data should be aggregated into the same graph, giving the user more flexibility.
=== An interactive quiz platforms for the classroom ===
“I wanted to create a privacy friendly version of Kahoot! so students do not get tracked while using it, which I think it is really important!"
Marlon, Elite Hacker winner ClassQuiz [7] serves as an alternative to Kahoot!, offering an interactive quiz platform for educators and presenters to create and host quizzes. Participants can compete by answering questions on their own devices, similar to the Kahoot! experience, while maintaining their privacy, which is especially important for an application intended to be used at schools.
=== Listen to any radio stream from around the world! Clock alarm included ;) ===
"This is my first big project that I have worked on alone. I had never done anything like this before and it was also a good opportunity to meet people and see other people's ideas!
Simon, Awesome Hacker winner OpenRadio [8] is a Desktop app combining Digital Audio Broadcasting (DAB), internet radio and alarm into one single app. It is written in Python and Gtk3 is used for the GUI. The code is licensed under GPL-3. Unfortunately it can’t bring you breakfast in the morning.
=== Get a free bag for your dog’s poo, exactly when you need it! ===
"My IT teacher told me about this contests and as I had an idea I went ahead! As a participant, you have nothing to lose and a lot to gain”
Oriol, Best Maker winner DogBag4City [9] is an intelligent device that provides dog owners with small bags to collect their dogs' excrements. The user has a key that releases a bag at no cost to the user. No more “I forgot my bag excuse!”
=== Make your game idea a reality without coding! ===
"My father found out about the contest by reading news on the internet and encouraged me to participate. I wanted to understand how a game engine works, so I decided to try to start one myself.
Marius, Best Freedom Project winner Artix Engine [10] is a user- friendly 2D game engine written in Python, designed to empower non- programmers in bringing their game ideas to life. Through a visual programming system, it enables users to visually define game logic.
=== Need to find a file? Do it using its hash! ===
I thought it could be fun for me to participate so I submitted a project
Matthias, Best Power User Tool winner hashfindutils [11] is a program to efficiently search on your computer for a file whose hash you somehow already know. It helps you for example, to know if you have already downloaded a file or to find out duplicate and delete duplicated ones.
== 2023 Youth Hacking 4 Freedom: the competition ==
The second award edition started in January 2023 with almost 70 registered young people from all over Europe who spent six months working on their own projects. Throughout the process, they had the opportunity to discuss their progress and solve their doubts in a monthly online meeting with experts and their peers. They also had a dedicated Youth Hacking 4 Freedom Matrix room where they could share progress, problems and success and also the FSFE team was available to answer their questions.
Once the projects had been submitted, the jury, made up of a wide range of experts in different technical areas, evaluated the projects. They did this first in an individual round and then, after choosing the final projects, through an online interview with the participants, who had to present their projects and answer the experts’ questions.
Finally, the six winners came to Brussels for the award ceremony, where they and one of their relatives enjoyed an invited weekend, which was possible thanks to the financial support of our donor Reinhard Wiesemann, full of activities and fun with the other winners and jury members, culminating in the award ceremony where the names of the winners were announced and the winners had the opportunity to present their projects.
== YH4F 2024 ==
If you want to join YH4F 2024 edition you can already sign up by registering here [12]. The coding period is expected to be from 01.01.2024 to 30.06.2024. Details for the next edition will be shared soon.
== Sponsorship 2024 ==
We are looking for Sponsors for our YH4F 2024 edition. We will share information on sponsorship levels soon. Meanwhile, you can check out our media kit [13]
If you are interested you, please send an email to contact@fsfe.org with “YH4F sponsorship” in the subject.
1: https://fsfe.org/activities/yh4f/index.en.html 2: https://fsfe.org/activities/yh4f/jury.en.html 3: https://fsfe.org/tags/tagged-yh4f-project.en.html 4: https://fsfe.org/news/2022/news-20221004-01.en.html 5: https://media.fsfe.org/w/wWUP7M5fJg2FcvG2Fv12sN 6: https://github.com/Dave879/MicroPlot 7: https://github.com/mawoka-myblock/ClassQuiz/ 8: https://gitlab.com/1337Misom/OpenRadio 9: https://sites.google.com/iessitges.cat/oriolvillegasmartin/ 10: https://www.github.com/MariusAngermann08/Artix-Engine 11: https://codeberg.org/zvavybir/hashfindutils 12: https://survey.fsfe.org/index.php/658534 13: https://fsfe.org/activities/yh4f/media.en.html
== About the Free Software Foundation Europe ==
Free Software Foundation Europe is a charity that empowers users to control technology. Software is deeply involved in all aspects of our lives; and it is important that this technology empowers rather than restricts us. Free Software gives everybody the rights to use, understand, adapt and share software. These rights help support other fundamental freedoms like freedom of speech, press and privacy.
The FSFE helps individuals and organisations understand how Free Software contributes to freedom, transparency and self-determination. We enhance users' rights by abolishing barriers to Free Software adoption, encourage people to use and develop Free Software, and provide resources to enable everyone to further promote Free Software in Europe.