{"id":106593,"date":"2019-11-19T16:50:17","date_gmt":"2019-11-20T02:50:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/?p=106593"},"modified":"2019-11-19T16:50:17","modified_gmt":"2019-11-20T02:50:17","slug":"hacc-2019-success","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/2019\/11\/19\/hacc-2019-success\/","title":{"rendered":"UH<\/abbr> M\u0101noa students code their way to victory"},"content":{"rendered":"Reading time: <\/span> 3<\/span> minutes<\/span><\/span>
\"Winning
Team Gary’s Best with Gov<\/abbr>. Ige<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

University of Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> at M\u0101noa<\/a> teams won first and third prize at the Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> Annual Code Challenge<\/a> (HACC<\/abbr>) on November 16. The winning team, called Gary\u2019s Best<\/a>, came up with an innovative solution for a challenge sponsored by the State Office of Energy and Hawaiian Electric Company (HECO<\/abbr>). UH<\/abbr> M\u0101noa team Area 51 Raid Squad<\/a> took third place. Twenty nine teams, including high school teams, participated in the 2019 HACC<\/abbr>. Gary\u2019s Best won $4,000, and Area 51 Raid Squad won $1,000.<\/p>\n

\"Team<\/a>
Team Area 51 Raid Squad with Gov<\/abbr>. Ige.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The challenge was to create a dashboard displaying the health of an electric vehicle charging station using key metrics developed from charging data analysis.<\/p>\n

The UH<\/abbr> M\u0101noa teams participated in HACC<\/abbr> through one of Professor Philip Johnson<\/strong>\u2019s fall semester information and computer science<\/a> (ICS<\/abbr>) class. ICS<\/abbr> senior and Gary\u2019s Best team member Matthew Lam<\/strong>, didn\u2019t know what to expect for his first competition.<\/p>\n

“The most nerve wracking thing was seeing the other teams\u02bb progress over the four-week challenge,” he said.<\/p>\n

Gary\u2019s Best wanted to fulfill all the requirements of the challenge while also showing off their diverse skill sets. Their HECO<\/abbr> Rewards app would allow users to submit feedback at electric car charging stations when they encounter a problem, either with the use of the charging station or with the payment system. The user would be given HECO<\/abbr> Rewards for their submission that they could redeem from HECO<\/abbr> at a later time. The team created a dashboard that combined the real-time feedback with historical data to analyze and predict the health of charging stations around the island.<\/p>\n

One area that set Gary\u2019s Best apart was the hardware element of their final project. The small scanner at each charging station would capture and send additional data to HECO<\/abbr> for analysis.<\/p>\n

“This year’s HACC<\/abbr> once again demonstrates the ability of UH<\/abbr> students to innovate and address significant social problems in Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span>,” said Johnson. “In only four weeks, they uncovered an important gap in the [HECO<\/abbr>-supplied] data set, and designed a small hardware device coupled with artificial intelligence software to automatically gather additional information about the electric vehicles getting charged. The improved data set provides new opportunities to learn how to increase electric vehicle use in Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span>, an essential step towards the goal of 100 percent renewable energy in Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> by 2045.”<\/p>\n

The team was comprised of ICS<\/abbr> students Lam, Sean Takafuji<\/strong>, Joshua Nishiguchi<\/strong>, Mercedez Castro<\/strong>, Irene Ma<\/strong>, Nixon King Ko<\/strong>, Edwin Zheng<\/strong>, and electrical engineering student Frendy Lio Can<\/strong>. STAR-GPS<\/abbr> programmer Devin Dennis<\/strong> assisted the project, and physics Professor Pui Lam<\/strong> consulted on the project. The name, “Gary\u2019s Best” refers to IT<\/abbr> Specialist Gary Rodwell<\/strong> who developed UH<\/abbr>\u2019s nationally recognized STAR-GPS<\/abbr> registration system.<\/p>\n

“The majority of our team works on STAR,” said Lam, “and it was a way of paying homage to our mentor.”<\/p>\n