hackathon x is a cooperation between Hack & Söhne, museum x at the Badisches Landesmuseum and Allard Pierson at the University of Amsterdam. After the first hackathon x was entirely dedicated to “Gaming in Museums” in 2019, this year’s hackathon x – vol. 2 will be more broadly dedicated to the “Digital Museum”, include several challenges and follow an open-source policy.

The background to hackathon x - vol. 2 is the revolutionary new concept of the Badisches Landesmuseum: museum visitors become active users of the museum. To this end, the objects are made accessible in a digital catalogue, the entrance ticket is replaced by a user card linked to a personal user account, and a variety of innovative concepts on escape games, digital platforms and artificial intelligence are experimented with.

Join and become part of this special hackathon! They are looking for people who want to develop the digital museum togetherthem. Let’s develop playful, surprising and intelligent approaches to the museum, the collections or the existing digital infrastructure. A special extra: particularly exciting ideas can also be further developed or even implemented after the hackathon.

Challenges

Challenge 1: Games

Do you want to make the museum world a bit more interesting and fun with games? At the first hackathon x in 2019, a web app for escape games and scavenger hunts was created, which has since been further developed, is designed completely as an open-source project and is attracting a lot of interest from other museums even before its publication. The aim of the challenge for hackathon x – vol. 2 is to further develop the basic functions of the web app and to expand it with new functions: Are you an AR programmer and would like to develop a module for corresponding functions? Are you interested in Tensor Flow and would like to integrate a module for the recognition of images and objects? Are you interested in robots and would like to integrate an interaction module with several existing Pepper robots? Or are you an awesome team and come up with ideas that we don’t even see at the moment? Then this challenge is the right one for you and you can participate in the expansion of the museum into a stage for exciting and interactive games!

Prizes

• First place: 1500€
• Second place: 1000€
• Third place: 500€

Judging Criteria

Each juror judges the submitted ideas according to their field of expertise. We have museum specialists, UX designers und game developers. If your idea can convince the majority of them, you just might win.

Technical Information

The web app is written in Typescript using Angular. The web app connects to a server backend also written in Typescript using Express and MongoDB; members of the development team will be present in the mentoring sessions.

Prerequisites

If it should be of interest for individual modules, we will provide a large package of museum object data.

Challenge 2: Platforms

Digital platforms are one of the hottest topics coming out of the COVID19 crisis. Museums around the world are currently working on ways to move their offers online. At Badisches Landesmuseum we are building a participatory digital platform for sharing, learning, discussing and creating to bring museums and users together in conversation around current topics. The central question is: how can the museum become a creative think tank and maker space for everybody. We are currently working on the concept for this platform and will go into implementation over the summer. By entering this challenge you have the chance to work on a live project and your prototype might end up in the platform. You have three possibilities to enter this challenge.

Develop creative solutions for the existing concept:

• You can develop composition and design tools that enable users to create their own micro courses
• You can build communication tools that are more than zoom and can be used by anyone
• You can build workshop tools for collaboration in a digital maker space

Build prototypes for new platform modules to push the concept further:

• You can build AR tools that enable users to create their own exhibitions outside the museum
• You can build tools to create digital exhibitions that are more than copies of physical spaces
• You can build a storytelling-tool where users and the museum can create and share content

Or you think of something unique and new that we don’t envision yet.

No matter which scenario you chose, with this challenge you will be working on one of the most relevant topics for museums and society at large right now. By building this platform we are not simply copying the physical space, we are creating digital formats for the new digital museum. If you are a fantastic team and want to help make museums become more exciting and creative spaces for everyone, or just work on cool tools for communication and co-creation, then this challenge is for you.

Prizes

• First place: 1500€
• Second place: 1000€
• Third place: 500€

Judging Criteria

Each juror judges the submitted ideas according to their field of expertise. We have museum specialists, business innovation experts and IT developers. If your idea can convince the majority of them, you just might win.

Challenge 3: Artifical Intelligence

Do you want to be part of the exciting process of using Artificial Intelligence to make the museum collections more accessible and open to researchers and the public? Together with the Allard Pierson in Amsterdam, the Baden State Museum is working on opening up AI for museums and wants to make corresponding approaches fruitful for our users.

How can machine learning help make the museum’s collection and digital offerings more accessible and fun? How does a recommendation system look like, based on the digital collection and existing digital offerings that support users in receiving exactly the information they want in a personalized way? How do we open up the museum as a space for open-linked data to existing databases or open knowledge graphs? What does individualized surprising content look like that provides access and enables your own productions? What support can machine learning provide to navigate millennia of cultural history and a digital collection of over a million objects? How does a unique algorithm look like that gives users worldwide access to their history and empowers them to tell their own story?

Prizes

• First place: 1500€
• Second place: 1000€
• Third place: 500€

Judging Criteria

Each juror judges the submitted ideas according to their field of expertise. We have museum specialists, Machine Learning Specialists, and AI researchers as well as a public board. If your idea can convince the jury, you just might win.

Prerequisites

We will provide a large package of museum object data and information about the collections, user data, and relevant linked data.

Development plan

After the Hackathon, the best teams are invited to submit their concepts in a development phase of 5 weeks to win a price of 5000€.