The extensive capability of ANT+ in a mobile environment was showcased at the Droidcon Berlin Hackathon ANT+ Challenge where three Android app development teams - Spanish Armada, Meeting+ and Swarm - received top hacking honours. The one-day event kicked off Droidcon Berlin, a conference that brought together the Android development community April 7-10 in Berlin, Germany.

14 teams (of 20 total hackathon teams) totalling 34 hackers were equipped with a variety of ANT+ sensors, ANT+ USB stick and OTG (on the go) cable, and software tools including a protocol analyzer and ANT+ device simulator. Teams were given eight hours to create a working Android application that enables real devices within the ANT+ ecosystem. The winning teams received a share of €2,250 in prize money and an assortment of ANT+ devices provided by Sony, Garmin and o-synce.  

“It was exciting to see the creative uses of ANT+. Each team had unique ideas that highlighted how simple and easy ANT+ is for developing applications,” said ANT+ Applications Engineer, Harrison Chin. “The winning teams really demonstrated their understanding of the ANT Protocol and ANT+. This showed in their apps as they were able to execute an innovative product under the tight hackathon timelines.”

Droidcon Berlin 2013 Hackathon ANT+ Challenge Winners: 

Place: 1st
Team Name: Spanish Armada
Team Members: Jose Luis Ugia, Cesar Valiente
Country: Germany
App Description: Dating application where sensors are used to identify individuals within a defined proximity. A profile of each user is displayed to identify name, sex, age, location and interests. 

“In a social setting, meeting people with similar interests can be a challenge. We wanted to create a solution to make it easier. With ANT+ sensors, we were able to connect individuals within the same location in a seamless and quick manner without needing GPS,” said Spanish Armada team member, Jose Luis Ugia. “ANT+ is an ideal development solution for any kind of indoor location-related interaction and it worked perfectly for our idea.”

Place: 2nd
Team Name: Meeting+
Team Members: Janusz Leidgens, Sarah Will, Florian Fetzer
Country: Germany
App Description: Meeting app where a user can identify their location in relation to where a meeting is in a conference situation.

“Our idea was inspired by the bad WiFi experience at many conferences. We wanted to create an easy way for people to find their meetings. ANT+ provided us with an ideal solution to put data into the real world and attach it to a location,” said Meeting+ team member, Janusz Leidgens. “This was our first time working with ANT+. After some initial learning, we had no problem getting data to and from the device. If we had more time, our plan was to implement the second part of the app where notifications would be sent out to people registered for a particular talk at the conference. Overall, the hackathon experience was great. The stress and anticipation of trying to meet the tight timelines is definitely something we will remember.”

Place: 3rd
Team Name: Swarm
Team Members: Jens Thorsten Stumpf, Sascha Löffler, Hannes Breul, Marcus Körner
Country: Germany
App Description: Multiplayer game using interaction between smartphones to associate users and advance them through the game.

“We used the ANT Protocol to identify the signal strength of other devices so players could tell their distance from one another,” said Swarm team member, Marcus Körner. “We found the ANT developer tools to be very useful and they helped us significantly through the building of this app. We could have used a couple more hours for implementation time to perfect the operation, but overall it was a great experience.”

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