/
Kennesaw State University Hackathon 2025

Kennesaw State University Hackathon 2025

Owned by George Sterling Foreman
Last updated: Mar 29, 2025
4 min read

HPCC Systems is a sponsor at this event as part of our academic program. It is hosted by the College of Computing and Software Engineering at KSU.

We have been taking part in this event with KSU since 2017! For more information about how they went, read our blog posts: The 2024 KSU Hackathon for Social Good

The 2023 KSU Hackathon for Social Good, The 2022 KSU Hackathon for Social Good and Fly on the wall - Our first Hackathon.

IDE Download Page

Click here

Apply Here

Be a hero: Help save Missing Kids

Please help HPCC Systems and the ADAM Program to save missing children in your local area by signing up for email alerts!

Getting up and running with ECL:

Workshop links:

Join us at our HPCC Systems ECL Workshop and Hackathon as part of The KSU Hackathon for social good!

Event date

March 27-29, 2025

Location

Joe Mack Wilson Student Center - Marietta Campus

Cost

Free

Hosted by

Kennesaw State University

Eligibility

The CCSE Hackathon is open to all undergraduate and graduate Kennesaw State University students. To encourage collaboration and emphasize how technology is part of everything we do, we require that each team has at least one CCSE student as a member.

Registration 

KSU Registration Page

Learn

  • Topics Include:

    • Introduction to HPCC Systems

    • Introduction to ECL Watch, the ECL IDE and the ECL Extension in VS Code

    • How to clean and analyze data using ECL (Enterprise Control Language)

    • Core ECL transformation and delivery tools

Data Source

9 data sources to work with will be revealed when the challenge opens.

Workshop Trainer, and Hackathon support

Bob Foreman - Software Engineering Lead

George Foreman - Prod Dev Tech Writer II

Hugo Watanuki - Manager Community Tech Programs

Alysson Oliveira - Software Engineer II

Mauro Marques - Sr Technical Support Engineer

What you need

  • A laptop

  • Installed VS Code with ECL Extension or ECL IDE

  • Ability to access the public internet (available in workshop room)

Quick start resources

Group messaging application

Microsoft Teams

Internship Opportunities

Find out more about the HPCC Systems intern program

What can I do to prepare?

First thing to do is to watch this series of videos on the introduction to ECL.

Course Title and link

Course Title and link

Session 1 - Introduction to HPCC Architecture and Terminology/Introduction to ECL

Session 2 - More ECL Introduction/Configuring IDE and RECORD/DATASET usage

Session 3 - Exporting Data Definitions - Boolean, Set, Recordset

Session 4 - Functions, Conditional ECL, Value Definitions

Session 4 - Functions, Conditional ECL, Value Definitions

Session 5 - ECL in Data Transformation - Cross Tabulation Reports

Session 6 - More Data Evaluation Reports, Visualization, Data Patterns and Introduction to TRANSFORM

Session 7 - PROJECT, ITERATE, ROLLUP and Transformation using TABLE

Session 8 - ROLLUP review and Introduction to JOINs

 

We have many resources available for you to use to familiarize yourself with our technology and how to use it. If you are new to us, then take some time to find out about HPCC Systems and what we do. Find out how HPCC Systems works, what ECL is and take a look at what goes on in our community.

  • Watch a quick overview video about HPCC Systems

  • Create your own Localized Container based Cluster. 

    • Note:  We will be using a cloud-based HPCC Systems cluster for the workshop.

  • You can use your preferred editor to write code but we do have our own, a Windows-based ECL IDE which you can download. On the download page, under Operating System, select Windows. Download both the ECL IDE and Client Tools.

  • VS Code is a good code editor if you don't use Windows.  Installation is slightly more complicated see below and also this cheat sheet:

    1. Download and install VS Code from here if you don't already have it installed.

    2. Download the HPCC Systems Client Tools from here.

      1. Choose your operating system from the popup list.

      2. Choose the appropriate "Client Tools" option for your operating system.  Make sure only one checkbox on the entire page is selected.

      3. Download and install.

    3. Launch VS Code, then search for and install the extension named "ECL (Enterprise Control Language) support for Visual Studio Code".

  • Once you’re up and running, try out a few of the tutorials.

  • Learn some ECL. This is the language used to write queries. It's easy to use, try it for yourself. Read the documentation or take a training course. 

  • Take a look at some video tutorials

Related content

All pages in this wiki are subject to our site usage guidelines.