The Cracker Cannon: A Powerful Weapon Against Hunger

The moment when you realize you haven’t slept, showered, breathed fresh air or heard a language besides HTML, Javascript, Flash, or CSS6 in over 36 hours. This, as I came to learn, is a Hackathon. 

This weekend Butlr.com took its wit to The Big Brand Hackathon at Madrone Studioes. A Hackathon is an odd, but delightful thing. Home Depot, Kraft, and Toblerone hosted this Hackathon, give programmers a chance to make them an app. At the competition were people of all ages and backgrounds; college kids, professionals, hackathon hobbyists, high school kids, starts-ups, a dog, and even a parrot. (We weren’t allowed to bring our Butlr Bot though! Grr). 

Butlr teamed up JamesNorman. Sleep deprivation and countless energy drinks culminated 36 hours later into a solution to hunger. A military solution. RitzCannon. It aims to solve Hunger. How so? Well the only plausible way of course—flinging Ritz crackers into hungry mouths. The game challenges users to hurl a cracker into a moving hungry mouth. Expect to see it as a wage-earning minigame on Butlr.com soon.

When eyelids were drooping, recycle bins were overflowing with every kind of energy can, and restroom lines stretched around corners, the event finally came to close and winners were announced. Butlr’s RitzCannon won ‘The People’s Choice Award’ for the app most loved by, well, the people! Don’t ever say people don’t care about stopping hunger! We left tired, stiff, and delirious. We left proud. 

A weekend well spent. Check back for more updates on Butlr’s progress. Until then, Cheers from the Butlr team!   

 

-The Butlr Team