On June 27, 2022, the summer workshop on the future smart glasses interface that was co-hosted by Huawei, City University of Hong Kong, National University of Singapore, and the Turing class at Zhejiang University officially began. For a six-day hands-on training exercise, ten teams were established by 30 offline students from Zhejiang University’s Turing class and 14 online students with design majors.

This hands-on training exercise was not only a thorough Turing class practical, but also a hackathon competition: Huawei gave each team a set of smart glasses, and the teams were required to design Android APPs and functions around the smart glasses. The competition’s judges would rank the final winning teams based on the innovation and product demonstration of each group.

The competition activities and smart glasses were introduced on the first day of the event by Dr. Shengdong Zhao from the National University of Singapore and Dr. Junbo Zhao, Project Director of Turing Class. The 44 participating students were then placed into groups at random using online self-introduction and communication. The students received technical advice on product design and brainstorming from Dr. Liu Chan from City University of Hong Kong, who also made insightful ideas. Each group had a functional development brainstorm on the smart glasses in the afternoon and produced a wealth of useful and original ideas.

The next day, professors like Liu Can critiqued and offered helpful feedback on each group’s project IDEA before Dr. Zhao Junbo delivered a succinct overview of AI development and implementation. In the afternoon, instructors from Huawei, like Jingyi Tang, offered online assistance and addressed inquiries regarding technical problems with their smart glasses. They also provided technical documents and sample code for the creation of the glasses, offering technical level support for the creation of Huawei’s eyewear.

From the afternoon of the third day to the sixth day, each team member employed their specialized knowledge and professional talents to the fullest extent while overcoming the technological hurdles offered by diverse disciplines and cooperating to accomplish the desired outcome. Regarding design, the students conducted user research and technical validation around the concept, selected the product's functional and interaction designs, and produced an introduction video and PowerPoint presentation explaining its technological product characteristics. After several days of hard effort, each student developed and acquired extensive expertise in project development, technical learning, and collaboration.

During the final round of judging, each team provided a product introduction and video presentation, answered the judges' questions, and received unanimous approval from the academic experts. Four teams were awarded the Most Influential Award, Best Idea Award, Best Design Award, and Best Engineering Award, respectively, based on the opinions of the judges. The victorious teams then gave their thank-you statements and posed for a group picture. The participating teams received the smart glasses from Huawei, while the winner teams received RMB 2,000 in prizes.

The Turing class summer training camp came to a triumphant conclusion after all of the students and instructors posed for a group portrait.

Reflections from faculty members and students

Yuan Zeqing

First hackathon experience.

During the opening of a pair of Huawei, three days passed pretty wildly, from the design of the brainstorm to the modeling of design algorithms, to the building of crash java Android, to the final experimental interviews, and finally the presentation. However, the general design and development of human-computer interaction left a quite different impression.

For the six-day boot camp, the harvest overflowed as ideas kept crashing into one another and bursting into brainstorm, the first true sense of managing a project (however tiny & ugly), and more.

Thanks to the perseverance of Ms. Designer, her two teammates, and Dr. Zhao’s assistance after our idea was rejected, the final FOCAREUS also met expectations.That rocks.

Liu Xianhao

After participating in a 6 day hackathon, I felt like I gained a lot of new HCI experiences, learned a lot about design and technology, and eventually gained some insight into my interests. I also really appreciated the sense of success and pleasure that comes from seeing ideas come to life. I'm extremely content to have fought for six days with Ms. Perch, Juanjuan and Kun Kun, and I’m also very appreciative of Mr. Silang’s help. Great thanks also go to the Timely Rain and the numerous friends, instructors, and brilliant designers I met.

Fang Chengrui.

We had a great time at the first hackathon, and it was providence that we would run into each other again.

The six-day Turing class summer workshop on human-computer interaction was effective. All of the teachers and students put in a lot of effort because it was hot outside and the practical training went from morning to night each day for eight hours. Congratulations to the winning teams! I hope that everyone got something from the experience, and I wish the Turing class students more success and a bigger stage in the future. Let’s work together.