We got second place at YQuantum 2025!

After MIT IQuHacks, I was feeling pretty demoralized about participating in quantum hackathons. Our team fell apart early—half the group was gone by 10 PM—and our QuEra project presentation was a complete mess. To be fair, the challenge itself was chaotic since it involved beta testing Bloqade, but it felt like I was the only one genuinely interested in either winning or at least connecting with sponsors. Out of the five of us, Rohan left early to hit an MIT party, Ryan seemed out of his depth, and Austin took off soon after for a Brown party—we didn’t see him again until our presentation. That left just Eric and me to piece things together.
In the moment, I was frustrated, but at least Eric and I managed to finish the challenge without turning on each other. Still, the whole experience left me questioning whether it was worth skipping school for events like this. Not that my classes were thrilling, but I would’ve liked to get something meaningful out of all the stress. Instead, I came back to a pile of makeup work and had to grind until 3 AM for several nights just to catch up on homework and lectures.
So, after that letdown, I wasn’t exactly eager to sign up for another quantum hackathon, only to get abandoned halfway through and buried in stress again. I ultimately chose to attend YQuantum for two main reasons:
- Jeffrey was one of the organizers, and I thought it’d be nice to reconnect with him.
- I’d just been invited to the Harvard Undergraduate Trading Competition the week before, which meant my flights would be covered. Honestly, that was the real motivator—there’s no way I’d have risked paying out of pocket only to be disappointed again.
Although I had to miss a week of school, I managed to stay on track by streaming lectures and reviewing notes on my own. This time, I was lucky to have teammates who actually cared. Haadi and Tanmay were clearly in it to win it, and their energy kept me going. I think that was the longest stretch I’ve ever stayed awake in my life. I definitely felt the sleep deprivation kick in at times, but I didn’t want to let them down. If they were giving it their all, I wasn’t about to half-ass my part.
Even when I doubted the value of my contributions, I kept at it—and that consistency paid off. Around 4 AM, I finally managed to resolve the biggest bottleneck in our project: reconstructing quantum states from the measured Wigner functions. That breakthrough ended up being crucial to our success.
After the hacking period, I was completely drained. I went back to the room to rest and nearly missed our presentation—I felt awful about that. During the awards ceremony, I had already convinced myself we didn’t win since we hadn’t placed first in the Alice and Bob track. I even texted my mom and Jeffrey saying it was a bust. So when they announced that we’d placed second overall—and that we’d won a $2,500 prize—it felt surreal.
Capping off the weekend by having dinner with Jeffrey and his friends in New Haven was a great way to wind down. Looking back, YQuantum restored some of the excitement I’d lost after IQuHacks. It reminded me that with the right team and environment, these events can actually be meaningful and even fun.