Quark was the grand prize winner of the 59 Days of Code competition this weekend, held in Fresno at the Pacific Southwest Building. Photo by Donald A. Promnitz

Quark, a home energy-saving and control application, has taken first place at the 2018 59 Days of Code competition in Downtown Fresno. The team for Quark accepted the grand prize—a check for $10,000—at the end of the contest, which was held in the Pacific Southwest Building on Saturday evening.

A part of the “Smart Cities” theme for this year’s challenge, Quark allows users to determine when to use certain utilities and to what extent, thus helping them develop a plan to bring down energy costs.

“When we heard the theme, ‘Smart cities,’ that kind of resonated with us in saying: ‘It’s all about the community, and we really want to create something for the better,’ said Ian Garoian, the marketing specialist for the team. “And in this case, it was being smart about your energy consumption.”

Their win comes at the end of nearly two months of programming and business planning, all to create a model of the plan from scratch. According to the team, this required copious amounts of cooperation—and caffeine.

“There’s a lot of communication, a lot of quick decisions,” said Aileen Pasion, who was the lead designer. “And so I think that really helped us at the end just kind of piece things together, pull things together, and understand what our brand represented.”

Another team, TatStat, won the “Classic” category at the conclusion of the contest. A tattoo artist database app, the TatStat team won the prize of $5,000.