The Muddy Trousers, A Fictional Crisis, and The VibeHack Aftermath
September 8, 2026
“OHHH MY LORD SWAYAMMMM!!! You do remember that you are supposed to write blogs every Saturday?!!!”
That is probably exactly what popped into your head when you saw this Week 6 blog rolling out more than two weeks late. 😅😅
But let me tell you something. The past two weeks were a wild mix of absolute awesomeness and pure frustration! The highlight? VibeHack’26. It was my department's (and probably the entire college's) first-ever hackathon! If you've been following my blogs, you already know I was THE CHOSEN ONE 🗿 to see this event through.
Dayyymmm, what a day it was.
It didn’t start out very nice, though. Those pristine white bottoms I specifically saved for the main event? Yeah, completely covered in mud. Why? Because I spent HALF AN HOUR standing in the pouring rain at Gundavli trying to hire an auto, carrying my backpack and three other bags weighing over 20kgs altogether!
But koina, a rocky start couldn't ruin the day. I’d be lying if I said the rest of the event went "smoothly"—for those 4 to 5 hours, I was literally sprinting between the two labs assigned to us. As the organizer, I had to make sure the participants didn't face a single bottleneck throughout the event. This is also exactly why I ended up with zero photos or videos of myself from that day. It’s like I wasn't even there! 🫠❤️🩹
Nevertheless, I am beyond glad I put in the sweat (and the mud) because the participants absolutely LOVED it.
Let's talk about the Problem Statement for a second. I could have handed everyone a boring, bullet-pointed PDF with a generic task. But honestly, if you're running the show, you have to give the people a show (Max Verstappen "Are you not entertained?!" meme)
Instead of a standard lab assignment, my absolutely goated brain decided it was a good idea to forge a literal piece of art—an entire newspaper (shoutout to The MLDC Times) detailing the digital disruption of a fictional e-commerce company called "Clinkt." It had cart abandonments, inventory puzzles, and recommendation system failures. I wanted the participants to feel like real-world strategists reading the morning financial news, not just students solving a textbook problem.
Actually, thinking about it… I am going to open-source this entire challenge. Very soon, I’ll be dropping the exact newspaper PDF and the raw dataset right here on the website. Consider this an official heads-up: I will be challenging all of you to step into the arena yourselves and see if you can solve the Clinkt crisis.
But until then, you'll just have to take my word for how well it played out. Or better yet, take their word for it. Reading the feedback from both the tech and commerce students made all the mud, the sprinting, and the chaos 100% worth it. Here is just a glimpse of what they had to say:
Getting to build a working prototype end-to-end in such a short time — it really pushed me to apply data science concepts practically instead of just theoretically.
Building solutions for real-world problem statements was the best part. Also, the thumbprint activity was really creative! The management and conduct was very good.
The coordination between organizers and volunteers was at peak. Managing participants was also done perfectly 🔥
Best management of the Dataverse team. I didn't face any challenges because of my best team members and a perfect leader.
It was a super exciting experience where I got to apply my knowledge of business in a practical way. I enjoyed brainstorming ideas and working with others.
I was not a student of data science, but I enjoyed the hackathon... got to know more about AI websites and technical skills.
My experience at the hackathon was truly great! ❤️✨ The task gave us a great opportunity to learn about teamwork and problem-solving... And the refreshments were really nice too—just one request: more sandwiches next time! 🤭🥪
A lot happened in these two weeks, and trying to cover all of it in one blog? Nah, none of you have that kind of attention span. So, I’ll do YOU a favour and publish some mid-week blogs until we are caught up by next Saturday 😎
Oh, and yes, I remember that F1 project I promised! It’s completely ready. Right now, it's a solid Jupyter notebook packed with calculations, predictions, and graphs. But I want it to look sleek. I'm going to build a dedicated F1 section right here on the website and host the project there so you guys can interact and play around with it 😉👍
And speaking of F1... guess what?! Max finished on the podium this weekend! 😎 And Kimi went from P19 to P1 in the sprint, becoming the first Italian to win at Monza since 1966 (60 F#CKING YEARS)….. like father, like son, they say!
Alright, my hands are tired, my brain is fried, and those mud-stained white trousers aren't going to wash themselves. See you in the mid-week drop!
If this chaos somehow resonated with you, go bother a friend with the link.