Quantum design hackathon, a success

Good morning, hackers

Attendees still on their first sips of coffee ambled into the event space, greeted and oriented by Unitary Foundation’s upbeat Operations officer, Veena Vijayakumar. Our workday then kicked off with an address from Ben Castanon (CEO, Unitary Foundation), welcoming the gathered artists, designers, musicians, physicists, and computer scientists alike to the hackathon.

The Harmoniqs team launched into the Herculean task of delivering an expeditious crash course in quantum computing and qubit modalities. Jaye Lin (Artist, Strategist, PM) acted as emcee as Aaron Trowbridge (CEO/Co-founder) and Jack Champagne (CTO/Co-founder) walked us through the physical implementations of qubits, and how Harmoniqs is building software for simulation, calibration, and real-time control for qubits of all architectures.

Stewart Smith (Founder, Parq) relayed how a lecture video by Andrew Helwer kicked off his deep dive into quantum computing. Inspired by the clarity of that lecture, he taught himself some rudimentary aspects of quantum computing by creating Quantum JavaScript (Q.js), his own drag/drop quantum circuit composer and simulator.

Stewart also presented two of his own quantum artworks: Beneath the Green, the Quantum and Quantum Error Choir—both created in partnership with the Yale Quantum Institute. He capped his short slideshow with an announcement that he has recently joined the lovely folks at
Moth Quantum in a fractional capacity. (Moth is a quantum software startup crafting tools for creative industries such as special effects, game rendering, music and audio filtering, and beyond.)

Work time

With the introductory talks and slideshows behind us, it was time to get in gear. Teams assembled together around islands of abutted work tables and began riffing on metaphors for the operations of their particular qubit modalities. Critically, each team was composed of folks from varied disciplines. This meant artists paired with engineers, paired with musicians, with software developers, designers, and so on. And many attendees boasted membership in more than one discipline.

During the afternoon work session, Francesco Valenti (IBM), presented an introduction to IBM’s Qiskit quantum development platform. Dalila Pasotti lectured attendees on the necessity of understanding subjects in order to make art for them. Ishaan Pakrasi (Senior product manager, AWS Braket) shared thought-provoking comparisons of “art/design thinking” and the scientific method, then shared links to intriguing artworks from CERN and Science Gallery London. Then, the hack sessions continued in haste as the presentation hour approached.

As attendees hurriedly cooked, a roster of roaming mentors visited with each team to listen to their ideas, answer questions, and offer suggestions:

• Alberto Maldonado. Quantum computer scientist, IBM.
• Dalila Pasotti. Research Lab TPM, Mathew Schreiber Holography and Optical Laboratory.
• Deborah Berebichez, PhD. AI and quantum leader / Partner, Ernst & Young.
• Francesco Valenti. Quantum software developer, IBM.
• Grace Lindsell. UX and Visual Designer, IBM Quantum.
• Ishaan Pakrasi. Senior product manager, AWS Braket.
• Jordan Harvey. CEO & founder, Remote Control.
• Kate Bonner. Graduate Student, M.S. in Quantum Science & Technology at Columbia University.
• Spencer Topel. CTO, Moth Quantum.
• Stewart Smith. Founder, Parq and Advanced Projects Group.
• Tyson Jones, PhD. Quantum computer scientist / Senior maths libraries engineer, NVIDIA.
• Aaron Trowbridge. CEO/Co-founder, Harmoniqs.
• Jack Champagne. CTO/Co-founder, Harmoniqs.
• Jeong Hun “JJ” Lee, PhD. Quantum software developer, Harmoniqs.
• Raghav Chari. Quantum software developer, Harmoniqs.

Presentations

After several hours of ideating, deliberating, experimenting, and furiously crafting—it was time for each team to unveil their creative collaborations. A panel of judges (Stewart Smith, Ishaan Pakrasi, Dalila Pasotti, and Francesco Valenti) assembled to observe and comment on the work. The entire room was in for a treat.

Team 1 — Superconducting transmons

Han Qin, Miguel Jesus Palma, Obinna “Obi” Nani, Samriddhi Bhatia, Senuri Rupasinghe, Xiaolei Deng. Team 1 took on transmons—arguably the most commercially prominent qubit modality in existence right now, the basis of machines from IBM and Google—and built a creative explainer video and slide deck that made the underlying physics feel approachable without flattening it.

Team 2 — Cat qubits

Cat qubits are one of the more conceptually elegant ideas in the error correction space—a bosonic encoding that biases noise in a way that makes errors easier to catch. Team 2 built an interactive visualization to bring that idea to life.

Team 3 — Entangled qubits

Surface codes are the error correction scheme most likely to underpin fault-tolerant quantum computers—and also one of the hardest things to explain at a dinner party. Team 3’s answer: make it a board game. Players initialize qubit patches, deform and reshape them, and measure across edges to build logical qubits.

Team 4 — Neutral atom qubits

Neutral atom qubits—using highly excited Rydberg atoms as the qubit medium—are having a serious moment in the field. Team 4 built an interactive site that earns its name: it’s immersive, it rewards curiosity, and it treats its audience as intelligent.

Team 5 — Trapped ions

A live, six-act audience participation performance—three “ions” named Dot, Bob, and Sneaky, a narrator named Simon, and a room full of people singing sustained harmonics and pointing their phone flashlights at the stage to simulate optical pumping. The script is a genuine piece of work: each act maps precisely to a stage of trapped-ion quantum computing, from vacuum initialization through entanglement to measurement collapse. A participant picked a state out of a hat. The ions resolved it YMCA-style with their arms.

Team 6 — Photonics

Part art installation, part physics demo. Team 6 built a drag-and-drop photonic circuit simulator with X, H, Z, and noise gates onto a live photon path; quantum state evolution visualized in real time.

Team 7 — Silicon

Silicon spin qubits are compelling partly because they promise to leverage existing semiconductor fabrication infrastructure. Team 7 built a four-stage educational journey through that world: 3D crystal visualization, gate voltage trapping, and in a genuinely fun design choice, a hand-motion quantum gate game.

Team 8 — Photonics (again)

Team 8 came in with two deliverables: “Photon”, a live site that frames photonic qubits through rich narrative and visual design, and “Quantum Rescue”, a playable photonics-themed game. Two different entry points into the same underlying physics.

Team Alex

It’s worth noting that little Alex B, aged 9, also participated in the Quantum Design Hackathon and presented a delightful candy store visualizer. We’ve all become big fans of Team Alex.

Closing remarks

The Quantum Design Hackathon’s closing keynote was helmed by David Bryant (Chief Creative Officer, IBM Research). David previously served as Chief Experience Officer for IBM Quantum—so he was particularly suited to address this hybrid gathering of quantum practitioners and professional creatives. His inspiring state of the industry did not disappoint.

David, along with all of the hackathon mentors and organizers, were impressed with the depth of output for what amounted to precious few labor hours. Attendees truly demonstrated both their own ingenuity and a willingness to leverage generative AI in order to bring ideas to life with record speed. Harmoniqs has graciously archived the artifacts from the hackathon for all to experience.

Collected writeups

We’re not the only ones to write about this unique event. Check out what other attendees had to say. (And these are just the posts we’re aware of.)

• Moth Quantum’s post.
• Unitary Foundation’s post.
• Harmoniqs’ post.
• Dr. Deborah Berebichez’s post.
• Veena Vijayakumar’s post.
• Mahnoor Fatima’s post.
• Elizabeth Kezia Widjaj’s post.
• Francesco Valenti’s post.
• Carrie Jaquith’s post.
• Dalila Pasotti’s post.