The Sendai qualifier of SMART PHONE APP JAM 2015(SPAJAM (*1), a smartphone application development hackathon (*2), was held at Tohoku University-Qatar Science Campus Hall on May 9 (Sat) and 10 (Sun), 2015.

Thirteen teams were participated in the Sendai qualifier, and a UoA student team "UoA Folk Dance Club" (*3) won the excellence prize. This team consists of three UoA students; Yusuke Hanada, Takuro Matsuo, and Yusuke Nakayama (all 3rd year undergraduates) and Taiko Kawasaki (UoA alumni and UoA Student Affairs Division Learning Support Stuff).
A series of regional qualifiers will be held all over Japan. In addition to the grand prize teams, three teams chosen from the winners of the excellence prizes at the eight regional qualifiers will be selected to compete at the finals. (*4)

Last year, a team including UoA students Taisei Igarashi (then a 2nd year undergraduate) and Nagisa Yonehara (then a 1st year undergraduate) won the grand prize at the SPAJAM 2014 finals (*5). Hopes are high that this year will also be successful for UoA students at SPAJAM.

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Regional Qualifier in Sendai

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The members of "UoA Folk Dance Club"

The award-winning work : "Yararetara yarikaesu"
The theme of the hackathon was "apps that make people grateful for their mother". Our app visualizes the amount of time mothers spend on their children. People can rekindle a feeling of gratitude to their mother by seeing this time. Afterwards, the app suggests what people can do for their mother.
The name of our app is "Yararetara yarikaesu". The name refers to the concept of " returning the favor to our mother and then some."
About this App:

  • Users invite their mother to use the app. Their mother inputs the average time she spent on her child in a day and activities she would like to do in the future.
  • Users then check the total amount of time mother spent on them. From the lists mother made, people choose the activities they would like to do with their mother and replied with a message.

This app is different from a normal present. It suggests returning the favor to mother by sharing a time together to make a memory. It will remain in their mother's heart as a precious memory. We are planning to release this app after its implementation is completed.

Team Member's Comment

  • Yusuke Hanada: "I was mainly in charge of the iOS client. After the theme announcement, our team's idea came together very smooth and quickly".
  • Yusuke Nakayama: "I was in charge of a part of API, test files, and slides on the server side. As an absolute goal, I focused on following the theme. I also think we were the only team that built a multiplatform app".
  • Takuro Matsuo: "I was in charge of the Android client. We came up a good idea that fit to the theme, so this was a good experience".

*1 SPAJAM2015
*2 The word "hackathon" is a portmanteau of the words "hack" and "marathon". A "hackathon" is an event where participants interested in the same theme compete with each other to develop software, etc.
*3 This is just the team name. The UoA does not have a folk dance club.
*4 In each regional qualifier, a grand prize team and three excellent teams will be selected. All grand prize teams and three excellence prize teams from all qualifiers will be selected as finalists.
*5 NEWS: "SMARTPHONE APP JAM 2014" Grand Prize

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