Our 14-Year-Olds Clinched Best Hardware Award at NUS Hack & Roll 2026: Outperforming 800+ Undergraduates
Here is the winning team with their Best Hardware Award at NUS Hack & Roll 2026!
Fresh from the editor’s desk comes our first-ever winners’ interview for the year, an exclusive sit-down with the team that took home the Best Hardware Hack at NUS Hack & Roll 2026, organised by NUS Hackers. As some of the youngest participants, the team consisting of Soham Bhole, Anish Srivastava, Loh Yu Shern, and Winston Aang (all 14 years old), went up against 809 other contestants, largely university undergraduates at Singapore’s largest and most prestigious student-run hackathon and emerged victorious after their stand-out project was evaluated by 156 judges.
Their winning project brings the invisible to life: an educational and experimental system that makes Wi-Fi visible and interactive. Through a custom graphical interface, their solution detects Wi-Fi signals, visualises interference in real time, and helps users better understand how wireless networks work, turning a complex concept into an intuitive learning experience.
In this interview, the team shares their journey, standout moments, and lessons learned with the Coding Lab Community team. Let’s head behind the scenes!
“Coding Lab was crucial to this achievement; my classes served as the fundamental preparation that allowed me to quickly adapt to new competition material.”
How did you feel about winning Best Hardware Hack in the NUS Hack & Roll, that too in your first attempt?
Soham: Winning at NUS Hack&Roll felt absolutely surreal, especially because this was my first ever hackathon at a national level. This gave me a huge confidence boost as a young developer.
Winston: I feel proud of winning with my team as we faced many challenges including hardware failure while working on our project. Building our project from scratch within a 24 hour timeframe was challenging and winning was awesome.
How was your experience at the NUS Hack&Roll event? What was your biggest challenge, and how did you overcome it?
Winston: Other than fixing our systems, it was nerve wracking for us when other competitors were mostly university students and we were one of the youngest teams present at the hackathon.
Yu Shern: I agree, it was quite scary. I really appreciated my teammates as I am more familiar with software development and did not know much about hardware before this hackathon. I was able to contribute to the team to my fullest potential after a quick crash course from them.
Commanding the room at NUS Friday Hacks: Our 14-year-old champions, the creators of Wi-Find, were invited back to NUS to share their award-winning hardware insights with a captive audience of university undergraduates!
What was the most memorable or exciting moment for you at the event?
Soham: Beyond winning, the most memorable part was coding throughout the entire night without sleeping, pushing through challenges together as a team. Taking short walks around the NUS campus during breaks was a must as it was refreshing and helped us reset mentally.
Anish: The most memorable event for me was when our project finally worked! The eureka moment was delightful as it spurred the team to not give up when we saw the light at the end of the tunnel.
What were the key lessons you learned during this competition?
Winston: The main takeaway from this competition for me was the value of teamwork. We were able to delegate different tasks to our team members and organise ourselves based on our respective strengths. This allowed us to work efficiently and overcome setbacks quickly.
Anish: On that note, I learnt to coordinate well with the rest of my team as we had to pace ourselves to work for the whole 24 hours continuously. The adrenaline rush and focus helped us realise our resilience and submit the project by the deadline.
Yu Shern: I agree with Winston. Meeting the judges and other groups and presenting our work was also a learning experience for me.
Is there anyone special you’d like to thank for supporting you along the way?
Anish: I couldn't have won without my teammates. I thank them for their support, which made the competition fun and bonded us as a team, especially under pressure. Thanks also to my parents for always supporting my journey as a budding developer. Most importantly, I thank Coding Lab and my teachers for their coaching, which ensured I had a strong foundation in coding and computational thinking and encouraged me to enter competitions like NUS Hack & Roll.
Yu Shern: My Coding Lab teachers taught me the coding basics, encouraged self-learning with new software, and imparted computational thinking beyond Python syntax. This helped me apply my knowledge to new scenarios, like figuring out how to code the hardware. My parents and Coding Lab teachers have been vital moral support throughout my coding journey.
Soham: Apart from Coding Lab, my parents and teammates, on behalf of the team, I would also like to sincerely thank the Hack&Roll management team for the opportunity to participate in this competition.
“Winning was absolutely surreal. As some of the youngest present, facing university students was nerve-wracking, but the ‘eureka moment’ when our project finally worked made all the pressure worth it.”
How did Coding Lab support you on this journey?
Soham: Coding Lab was crucial to this achievement, providing the opportunity and helping form our amazing, complementary team. The guidance, environment, and encouragement from teachers were invaluable. My classes here served as excellent fundamental preparation, allowing me to quickly adapt to new competition material.
Yu Shern: Like my teammates, Coding Lab provided the platform to join. I feel supported by my teachers, who offer personalised guidance on competition suitability based on past experiences. I am grateful they believed in my ability to handle hardware programming despite my predominantly software background. A big thank you to Coding Lab for this prestigious opportunity!
We are proud of our students and love to see them applying what they have learnt to new competitions and contexts.
At Coding Lab, we are incredibly proud to see Soham, Winston, Anish, and Yu Shern translate their classroom foundations into real-world breakthroughs. Their victory at NUS Hack & Roll is a powerful testament that with the right mentorship, young coders don’t just participate in the tech ecosystem—they lead it. 🚀
From mastering Python syntax to commanding the stage at NUS Friday Hacks, these students embody the spirit of innovation we strive to ignite in every learner. We can’t wait to see how they continue to push the boundaries of what’s possible in STEM! 💙
Our #CodingLabStudents blogs feature our ambitious students and their ongoing coding journeys – be it the budding coder or advanced Python Pro, we appreciate each and every single one’s efforts as they progress to greater heights. 🌱
Coding Lab offers an award-winning curriculum specially for ages 5 to 18 – check out our courses to begin your own coding journey today!
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