PennApps Fall 2013: real-time app editor Swap wins $10k

Swap, a real-time iOS app editor, won the $10,000 grand prize at PennApps Fall 2013, the largest college hackathon ever, organizers say — at least until PennApps Spring 2014.

The Penn student-run hackathon, where developers spend a weekend building software and hardware, continues to outdo itself. It more than doubled in size from its spring iteration, going from about 500 hackers to more than 1,000 this year. Hackers came from as far as Switzerland, Singapore, Hong Kong and Israel. The grand prize grew this year, too, from $4,000 last spring to $10,000 this fall.

It was the second time that PennApps held an application process for non-Penn students who wanted to participate in the hackathon, said organizer Pulak Mittal. More than five hundred non-Penn students, including those from Stanford, Georgia Tech, Penn State and UCLA, were chosen out of more than 1,600 applicants.

Judges included First Round Capital managing partner and Wharton alumnus Josh Kopelman, Bitly‘s Chief Scientist Hilary Mason, Codeacademy cofounder Zach Sims and RapGenius cofounder Tom Lehman.

Below, the winners and their demo videos.

1st Place: Swap, built by students from the University of Chicago and Stanford University, as well as a high school student. It calls to mind Artisan‘s live-publishing tool.

2nd Place: SuperDuper Mario, an app from Carnegie Mellon students, puts Super Mario in your world. Have him jump around your bedroom desk, or your friends, to collect coins.

3rd Place: Soundmesh, an app from students of the National University of Singapore, which uses speakers from different devices to create a surround-sound system.

http://youtu.be/mkTRKo3D7WA

Read more on the Daily Pennsylvanian and also here.