This October, for the first time, RedEye entered Hack Manchester and won ‘Best in Show’, beating top tech talent from some of the biggest and well known employers in the North West. The 24 hour coding competition is held as part of the Manchester Science Festival with teams of four who had to arrive with an idea and within 24 hours turn it into a working product!
RedEye encouraged the development teams across the business to test their abilities and enter the event enrolling members from a variety of different roles, with a mix of technical and non-technical employees. Having a nimble and diverse skillset was pivotal in allowing team members to get stuck into the challenge. It was also a great opportunity to bring employees together from across different departments and offices, embodying the spirit of the challenge to work as a team, learn new things and achieve something remarkable in 24 hours!
The RedEye Hacks
The first team entered the best RISE challenge, where they had to create the best use of beacons for the RISE community. The other team entered the Clockwork challenge, where the team had to think up the most ridiculous use of clockwork! Although the teams were in it for the enjoyment of doing something they love in an unusual and fun environment, RedEye were thrilled to be awarded with the Best in Show Award, with all four of the Clockwork team members winning Pebble Time smart watches!
One of the amazingly creative ideas the RedEye teams came up with was a SMS powered Rube Goldberg Alarm Clock. It was the most ridiculous use of an SMS API and even more so the most ridiculous way to wake yourself up in the morning! The team used a variety of technologies, from Low Level C on Arduino boards, PHP and native HTTP calls, making full use of the clockwork SMS API.
The Hack Manchester 2015 event was supported wholeheartedly by RedEye, not only providing the teams time to work on their hacks, but by also financially supporting the hacks. RedEye CEO, Garry Lee, was even on hand on the day to provide much needed support and food and drink throughout the 24-hours to fuel the recruits!
RedEye are currently on the hunt for new talent to join the RedEye Development team, that are as committed to putting their abilities into practice at events like the Hackathon, as we are!
RedEye Senior Software Developer, Adam Davis, gives some insight into working in the Development Team at RedEye...
“I started at RedEye over two years ago now, working as a developer contributing on various strategic projects. As the development team has grown in size, I was given the ability to progress my role and within my short time at the company I gained the responsibility to line manage Developers within my team and devise and suggest improvements to our development practices and processes.
RedEye is a company that offers excellent support and career development opportunities. It’s also a breath of fresh air to be working for a company that not only supports, but encourages its staff to get involved in activities outside of work like Hack Manchester.
Currently at RedEye there is a heavy focus on stream lining development. We are continually looking to modernise and improve our systems and are always looking for fresh, new development talent to join our expanding team”.
