This past December, TrialX celebrated another incredible year-end tradition—the Hackathon 2024! Continuing the spirit that birthed TrialX 16 years ago at a hackathon, the year-end event brought together talent from across the company for five days of innovation, collaboration, and groundbreaking ideas.
Fueled by creativity (and plenty of pizza + coffee), TrialX’ers spent the week brainstorming, designing, and building with passion.
This Year’s Theme: Gaming + Learning + LLMs
The challenge? To create engaging games and tools inspired by real-world challenges in health research, clinical trials, and space exploration using technologies such as React, PIXI.js, Backend- Django, REST Framework, Javascript, Node.Js and more.
🎮 Why Games? The Power of Play in Health Research
Games have an incredible potential to simulate scenarios in an engaging and interactive way. At TrialX, we work towards enabling health research on earth and space. Understanding the actual dynamics of these endeavors such as patient recruitment management in clinical trials, remote data collection in clinical research and space health research in detail can help us empathize with our users and understand their pain points better. This understanding inspired the development of games during our Hackathon. Each project tackled significant challenges, demonstrating the power of combining gaming, learning, and advanced technologies like LLMs to drive innovation.
Inspired by the simplicity and innovation of games like Factorio—a favorite among Silicon Valley’s elite—we asked ourselves:
What if we could build games powered by AI that mirror real-world challenges in health research?
With the advent of LLMs (Large Language Models), we can now create infinite, personalized gaming experiences. Imagine education games powered by LLMs, offering endless possibilities to learn, problem-solve, and simulate real-world challenges in a fun and immersive way.
Here’s what the teams came up with:
Genome Quest: The DNA Detective 🧬
Team: Double Helix Chronicles
- Objective: Solve puzzles related to DNA and gene sequences to identify mutations.
- Gameplay: Players act as DNA detectives navigating levels, tracking mission progress, and learning about genetics in an engaging way. Players have to identify the correct sequence of genetic markers to trace the genetic origin of a contagious disease. They have to then investigate and piece together clues to find the source and stop the outbreak.
- Highlight: The team created an educational yet fun game that makes understanding complex genetic concepts accessible to all.
Mars Exploration: Health Habitat 🌌
Team: Mars Explorers
- Objective: Guide humanity to survival on Mars by managing resources, monitoring life support, and overcoming space challenges.
- Gameplay: Players take on the role of an elite astronaut navigating asteroid fields, landing on Mars, and establishing a sustainable colony.
- Core Message: Highlight the importance and challenges of space colonization through resource management and strategy.
Trial Quest: Heroes of Health 🎮
Team: Health Quest
- Main Game: Simulate the complexities of clinical trials, from participant recruitment to running trials.
- Mini Game: Vaccine Rush – A turn-based strategy game distributing vaccines to prevent global outbreaks.
- Objective: Educate players on the importance of clinical trials and inspire empathy for real-world challenges in medical research.
Recruitment Rush 🌟
Team: Earthlings
- Objective: Create a data-driven simulation tool to streamline clinical trial participant recruitment.
- Problem Tackled: Address inefficiencies in recruitment strategies with a focus on planning and testing with actionable insights.
- Highlight: Leveraged modern development tools and frameworks to build an intuitive and effective recruitment simulation engine.
This year’s hackathon proved yet again that TrialX thrives on collaboration and creativity. The projects tackled important issues while showcasing the potential of combining gaming, learning, and cutting-edge technologies like LLMs. A massive thank you to all participants, team leads, and organizers for their hard work and innovation. Here’s to making 2025 even more impactful and fun!
What else were we up to in 2024? Read more here.
