From 4–7 July 2022, around 35 participants from universities all across Melbourne came together to learn about quantum computing and Qiskit in order to get ready for two days of intense hacking. This hybrid in-person and online Qiskit event was a first of its kind for Australia.
The first two days were focused on a series of by speakers from The University of Melbourne, RMIT, Monash, UNSW, Quantum Brilliance and IBM Quantum. Lectures on the first day focused on providing an introduction to quantum computing and Qiskit with an industry panel answering the age old question 'Why Quantum Computing?'. The day finished with a hands on Qiskit Blocks Social Challenge: a fun Minecraft style escape room game to learn about quantum circuits.
The second day is where the participants started to get their hands dirty learning about applications of quantum computing, starting with quantum machine learning topics.
In the afternoon, an overview of each Qiskit Application module (Finance, Nature, Machine Learning and Optimisation) was given so participants had a greater understanding of how to use these modules for their hackathon projects. Participants then had the opportunity to test their knowledge of these modules by solving four problems in the Qiskit Challenge Melbourne - a challenge similar to that of the Qiskit Fall Challenge 2021.
To end the day, a team of mentors from universities across Melbourne came to pitch their hackathon project ideas to everyone. If there was a project that caught your eye, you could join that group, otherwise everyone was free to propose their own unique idea.
The next two days were spent eagerly hacking away. On the final day of the hackathon, teams presented their project in a series of 3 minute pitches, in an attempt to win over the judges on the four judging criteria: Originality, Usefulness, Community Benefit and Presentation. The project that ultimately captivated both the judges and the community was 'Expressing Quantum Computation Through Generated Art'. This team created a Python library that transforms your quantum circuit into a piece of music.
1st Place and Community Choice Winners
Expressing Quantum Computation Through Generated Art: created a Python module that can transform Qiskit quantum circuits into music videos.
2nd Place Winners
Calibrating Error Extrapolation for Variational Quantum Algorithms: explored the feasibility of calibrating error extrapolation on an 8 qubit water molecule model.
3rd Place Winners
Quantum Adversarial Machine Learning: explored if QML architectures are more robust to adversarial attacks than their classical counterparts.
4th Place Winners
Quantum Procedural Generation: used Grover's algorithm to generate the growth of a flower and stems.
Using Quantum Machine Learning to Model Financial Wellbeing: used quantum machine learning to predict the financial wellbeing of individuals.
A Visual Representation of Quantum Noise: created a quantum wheel of fortune based on the noise of IBM quantum computers.
Approximating Large-Depth QNNs with a Quantum Tangent Kernel: analysed parameter evolution in variational algorithms with large depth circuits.
Investigating the Performance of Distance 2 Heavy Hexagon Codes on IBM Devices: investigated the properties of the smallest heavy-hexagon code capable of detecting a single error and the distance 2 code on IBM devices.
Quantum Chemistry Simulations using Entanglement Forging: explored the technique of entanglement forging to decrease the number of qubits required for quantum chemistry simulations.
Quantum Twitter Sentiment Analysis: developed a quantum machine learning model to classify the sentiments expressed in a dataset of Tweets.