On Monday I headed to Zurich airport with our eldest son to hop across to Oslo.
He’s between semesters at Uni - waiting for his exam results to trickle in - and it’s great we’re getting the chance to get a change of air for a few days.It’s rare that I sit in a window seat, so I was sure to capture the view as we left Zurich...
… and arrived in snowy Oslo. The weather had impacted our trip very slightly - a 30-minute delay to our 2-hour flight - but we were still happy to touch down in Norway.
We immediately got the sense it was going to be cold.
I hadn’t been to Oslo in more than 25 years, but there was still something familiar about the airport, somehow.
The best way to get into the city is via the Flytoget high-speed train.
It’s really a fantastic train, made even better by the snowy views as you fly through the Norwegian countryside.
And into the city, too.
Getting off at the National Theatre station, we had a fairly short walk through the park to our hotel.
As my son's marks were looking really very good, we decided on a nice local restaurant with Norwegian specialities. He chose the slow-cooked pork knuckle, which was crispy on the outside and like butter on the inside. Apparently - I don't eat meat, so took his word for it.
The following morning we met Zach Kron for breakfast and then headed into the office for the official kick-off of the Forma Hackathon.
Daniel was the master-of-ceremonies, welcoming everyone.
Zach gave an inspirational speech (which was apparently half speech, half fever dream, as he’d just recovered from a bout of illness) to get folks in the mood.
Håvard helped form teams and get people to pitch their projects.
I was very happy to catch up with old friends from the Developer Advocacy and Support team, Denis and Petr.
Lunches were downstairs in the canteen.
Part of me was a little sad not to have time to explore Oslo, but my son spent many hours wandering through the snowy (and often treacherously slippery) streets.
The Tuesday evening was spent hacking...
… with pizza.
Walking back, I did wonder how these scooters perform in the depths of a Norwegian winter, but decided not to find out.
After a few more hours of hacking in the hotel room, I went to the hotel sauna for the last half hour. I had it to myself, but it’s clear people had been making the most of it. This particular scene reminded me of a mid-winter sauna in the Swedish city of Borås, back in the day. If we ever have a drink together, be sure to ask for the story about the Swedish fireman convention. Good times.
Aside from the hacking, there has been lots of chance to chat about technology - especially Forma, of course.
At 4pm it was time for the various teams to present. It was a very interesting session, as there was a really nice mix of “pure” Hackathon teams - made up of people coming together on the day - and companies who have sent their own teams to work on specific features they wanted to develop (more like our classic Accelerator model).
The jury - sat to the left of this photo - assessed the various team projects.
The first team integrated Forma with Rhino Grasshopper.
I presented my progress from the weekend, showing how views from inside the building could be assessed using VASA inside Forma.
The next team had integrated AI into Forma to create geometry via a text interface.
The next team focused on views onto a building using raycasting.
My old friends from France, Alex and Charles Piro, presented their Augmented Reality integration with Forma.
More friends from Greece - the PLEX-Earth team - had explored sourcing field data such as photos inside Forma.
Saleem worked on analyzing satellite imagery to automagically integrate trees into Forma.
The penultimate team was from Focus Software - an Autodesk reseller - who created an importer to bring geometry from GML into Forma. They also integrated Forma with AutoCAD!
Last but by no means least was from Goldbeck, who integrated their car park configurator into Forma.
While the judges deliberated, it was time for… more pizza!
And the winners were… the Piro brothers for their AR integration, Saleem for his Satellite Trees work and Team Formicae for their Rhino integration. Congratulations to all!
I was really impressed by everything the various teams were able to create during the all-too-short 2 days. (I think a 2-day Hackathon is a bit like a 45-minute flight that never reaches cruising altitude: by the time you’ve taken off it’s time to start the descent. ;-)
And congratulations also to the organizers - and the Forma staff who supported - for all their hard work, especially to Håvard and Daniel. I hope I get to attend another of these in the near future!
