MATLAB Design Hackathon for Civil Engineering - UTS Tech Festival 2024

Bridge the Future: MATLAB Design Hackathon for Engineers

Join us in celebrating the midyear break and unleash your engineering game design and development skills! In June 2024, the UTS Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology will host this hackathon. 

We will put emphasis on forward-thinking nature of this event. This two-day event provides students with the opportunity to unleash their creativity and build a bridge-design based game from the ground up using MATLAB. By participating this hackathon, you can create an engaging and rewarding game, allowing you to apply your MATLAB skills to real-world bridge design challenges.

Forget about grades and job expectations this is simply a chance to enjoy yourselves, meet new people, and acquire new skills!

***Hackathon Details***

Date: Wednesday, 19 June to Thursday, 20 June 2024
Time: 10:00am - 5:00pm 
Location: Building 7, Level 3, Room 10B 10G 
Additional Info: This is the primary meeting point for the Bridge Future Hackathon, but participants are free to work from any location on-campus or off-campus that suits them. The above location will be open from 10:00am – 5:00pm both days and mentors and organising staff will be present during these times. We will assign experienced mentors to each team to provide guidance and assistance throughout the hackathon. 

Who is invited: 

The event caters to UTS students, both undergraduates and postgraduates. Although we anticipate the majority of attendees will be from the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, students from other schools are encouraged to participate as well! However, spots are limited, so be sure to register as soon as possible! (and we kindly ask that you only register if you're certain of attending on the day).

Program: 

Wednesday, June 20 (Day 1) 

9am - 10am:  

• Welcome, introduction, registration and group forming. 
• Brief introduction about the hackathon's objectives, rules, and schedule 

10am - 12pm:  

• Introducing the problem (determine the sofit of a bridge through a game using MATLAB) 
• Providing data and rules such as the river section, rainfall data, catchment data,  
• Explaining the concept of drag force on piers and water level simulations. 
• Providing rules for simulating water levels for different return periods of floods and determining drag forces on bridge piers.  

12m - 1pm:  

• Lunch 

1pm - 2pm: 

• Introducing MATLAB fundamentals relevant to bridge design, covering basic syntax, data manipulation, plotting, animations, and numerical methods. 
• Explaining how to convert this design into a game using MATLAB! 

2 pm – 5pm   

• Brainstorming 
• Clarifying any questions from participants. 
• Working on your game. 

5pm - 6pm:  

• Wrap up session

Thursday, June 20 (Day 2) 

Hacking Session (morning and early afternoon):  

• Work on implementing your MATLAB solutions. 
• Applying creativity and innovation in bridge design and simulation techniques. 
• Feedback and guidance will be offered by mentors where necessary. 

Finalisation and preparation (afternoon):  

• Finalising your MATLAB codes and prepare your presentations. 
• Creating clear, concise, and visually appealing animations for the presentation. 

Project presentations and judging (late afternoon):  

• Presenting your bridge design game with proper animations. 
• Judges will evaluate projects based on criteria such as creativity, technical proficiency, and presentation quality  
• Feedback will be provided to all teams. 

Awards and closing (evening):  

• Announce the winners and distribute prizes. 
• Thank participants, mentors, and sponsors for their contributions. 
• Opportunity for networking and discussion among participants. 

Prizes: 

Small prizes with a prestigious certificate will be given, recognising great achievements (sponsored by FEIT and MathWorks). 

Team sizes: 

There is flexibility in team size; however, we recommend teams of 2-4 individuals. You can come with a pre-made team but there will also be time to form new teams and recruit new team members on the first day.

Theme: 

The general theme is "Bridge Future". 

Core topics, equations and procedures, and MATLAB graphical user interface instructions will be provided on the first day of this hackathon for teams to design and build their game around. This ensures that all teams come to event with a blank canvas, ready to collaborate on any creative design ideas that are inspired by the themes of the day. 

Food: 

Light lunch (midday) will be provided on both days, but participants are encouraged to bring their own food and plenty of water. 

What to bring: 

Some recommended resources are: 

• A laptop to work on 
• MATLAB software installed and other general software and tools that you think you may need. 

What skills do I need: 

To participate, you should have a good understanding of basic MATLAB features and a strong passion and drive to create a game. To streamline team formation, we will ask participants to consider the skills they possess or wish to develop during the event. These skills may encompass programming, game design, bridge design, MATLAB commands, or any others relevant to the activity. 

What if our game fails: 

If your team doesn't reach its goals, don't worry! Hackathons are about creativity and experimentation. Use it as an opportunity to learn new skills and have fun along the way.

Guest Speaker and Mentors: 

Bradley Horton is an application engineer at MathWorks. Over the last 20 years, Bradley has delivered many technical seminars and organised numerous training workshops on the exciting features of MATLAB. He has also worked closely with many universities in Australia and abroad to train students, enhancing their programming skills. 

Hadi Khabbaz will be the main mentor for this activity. He is a Professor in Civil Engineering with over 20 years of experience in applying and teaching MATLAB software. He has collaborated with MathWorks to develop modelling tools for engineering design projects. Additionally, he has played an active role in conducting research on bridge engineering, railway substructure, and ground improvement techniques. His research has focused on experimental, theoretical, and numerical analysis with strong applications to real-life engineering problems. 

Organisers: 

This event is organised by the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering in the Faculty of Engineering and IT. 

Be sure to register your attendance by Friday 14 June 2024.

This event is hosted with:



For any questions about this event, please contact hadi.khabbaz@uts.edu.au

To enable a safe, comfortable and enjoyable experience for all attendees, security measures are in place to ensure the smooth running of our events.

UTS Tech Festival