Most of you will have already applied to HackUPC. (If you haven’t, we’re sorry! Applications have closed already.) To do so, you’ll have visited our web, clicked the Apply now button, registered in our platform and filled in the form. That’s all possible thanks to the Webdev department and their work throughout the year. They are the developers of HackAssistant, a tool to make the management of hackathons easier that is the basis of our platform; the web, the Live page (which shows the schedule during the event), and all the other things that help us carry out our tasks, such as the queue QR system for the meals. And, of course, they design one of the stars of the event, The Game.
This department is one of the most active, as there’s always work to do all year round, and has many people dedicated to it. Gerard is now an advisor for the whole team, but was an active member until recently, while Oriol, Aslo, Pau and Bernat work in different projects each. We have asked them some questions about their tasks and the way they organise themselves.
Why did you want to be organisers of HackUPC?
Gerard: I first learnt of HackUPC in a dinner with a friend and former HackUPC organizer. She mentioned they were organizing the first ever student hackathon in Spain. When she told me about it, I felt a bolt of energy. I wanted to be part of that. I wanted to change people’s lives. Make a change in the world. Next week I interviewed with the then director Miquel, and joined the team.
Aslo: I participated as a hacker both on KairosHacks and the first edition of HackUPC. At that time, I talked with Marce, who was a hacker and volunteer then, and we decided to sign up. HackUPC was very well organised and I wanted to be part of a team which could get things like this off the ground. (Marce went on to be an organiser and now has an advisor role.)
Pau: I attended KairosHack as my first hackathon and it got me hooked into this world. Some of my friends joined HackUPC as organizers but I was reluctant because I wanted to keep going there as a hacker. Eventually, after I had my share, I joined the team to help spread the awesome feelings that a hackathon can bring out.
How long have you been organisers?
Gerard: Probably for too long. I’m technically not an organizer anymore, I switched to an advisor role in September. Before that, I had been an organizer since November 2015. I was part of the organizer team for all 4 HackUPC’s.
Aslo: I’ve been an organiser for two years, since the second edition.
Pau: Since the third edition.
Which have been your favourite moments here?
Gerard: My favourite moment was in Fall 2016. I hacked together the website for that edition, with Victor’s feedback, in a couple nights. It honestly felt like a hackathon. Apart from that, probably my favourite moments are watching the first hackers arrive. We put a lot of effort before the event. Watching the first hackers arrive is the realization that it’s starting and that the effort was meaningful.
Oriol: When the first hacker checked-in baggage with the new system, it crashed. Although it was up and running in 5 minutes, the mess it caused was considerable, no need to blame PHP.
Aslo: The best moment is seeing people using the tools that you’ve created before, and they work and do their job. Another important moment was last’s edition The Game, lots of people were hooked.
What differences have you seen between attending a hackathon as a hacker and organising it?
Gerard: Attending as a hacker is a great experience, you get to learn and stitch stuff together with friends for 24 hours. Organizing is even better in my opinion: it’s like doing a hackathon, the main difference is that it runs for a few months. You make a ton of friends and learn a lot in both cases. I really recommend trying to volunteer for a hackathon, contributing back to the community you are part of, it gives you a sense of accomplishment.
Aslo: Going to a hackathon, you get to do an insane amount of work in a few hours. Organizing it, you get to do an insane amount of work in the span of several months.
Bernat: Attending a hackathon as a hacker involves having a nice weekend sharing good times with your colleagues, meeting new people and learning new skills. But organizing a hackathon is more than just a weekend, it involves a lot of teamwork in order to bring the best experience to our hackers!
You are in the Webdev department. What is exactly your job?
Gerard: Telling Oriol to rest a bit. (Laughter of the rest of the team.) No, for serious. My job now is to overview and help the current team members when needed. As a team, they have the responsibility of developing, testing and deploying tools to be used during HackUPC. This includes the website, the registration platform, the Live page and any HackUPC related technology you see and use before, during or after HackUPC.
Oriol: Depends on the day, but 99% of my time is for updating travel reimbursement deadlines and 1% for all the other stuff.
Aslo: The truth is that everyone in the department contributes as much as they can according to their availability. Usually the projects are decided when we start (some are our idea, some are requests from other departments) and everyone takes whatever they want/can do. My most important contributions are the Live page and Maps. Right now, I’m working on a HackAssistant plugin to manage the hardware lab.
Pau: I’m adding a Judging module to HackAssistant to manage all the process of judging projects.
Bernat: I’m currently working on this edition’s The Game. Creating the problems, preparing them, testing… A lot of work in order to have a well-structured challenge for the participants!
What do you like about working in Webdev?
Gerard: It’s like a hackathon but months long instead of 36h.
Oriol: THAT I HAVE ALL YOUR DATA. No, really, we follow the GDPR, yes, we do. Really. Not lying. Sure. Jokes apart, we do.
Aslo: I’ve learnt a lot in this department, both about technologies and about teamworking. It’s a very creative department in HackUPC and you’re free to do whatever you want. For example, when I designed Maps, I did it in 3D, when we just needed a simple map.
Pau: The pressure of having hundreds of people depend on your system brings out the most careful programmer in you. And with Gerard as a senpai I learned a lot about backend, good GitHub flows, best practices, CD/CI…
Bernat: You have to face and solve real problems, which make you learn.
Which tools do you use to organise yourselves?
Gerard: We mostly rely on GitHub issues and pull requests to set what needs work to be done and review the work of each other. GitHub is love, GitHub is nice.
Oriol: My hand, I’m used to write things down there. I think I said that before… I usually write a list of the first two or three letters of everything I have to do during the day on the morning, during my commute. People look at me sometimes, it’s funny. But well, you always have it there, you can’t lose it unless… You get a shower! But then it’s the end of the day, and it gets clean for the next one! Well, GitHub and Slack reminders also help.
Aslo: Issues and Slack.
Pau: Nothing to add, except that I use pen and paper instead of my skin to write stuff down.
How are decisions about the web made?
Gerard: Mostly it is through deep collaboration between the Design department and Webdev if it’s a decision regarding visual appearance. If it’s about technical stuff, it usually gets solved inside Webdev by one of us taking ownership of the issue in GitHub.
Which other things is your department in charge of?
Gerard: The Game, editing applications that need changes in the backend, registering volunteers such that they can do check-in, coordinating the technical side of the judging at the end of the hackathon, and the hardware lab and baggage apps.
Oriol: Don’t forget the baggage printer!
How do you identify when your department needs to work on them?
Gerard: Usually the deadlines are pretty clear. Firstly, the focus is around the front-end HackUPC website and registration platform. Once that is done, then all the rest of apps have HackUPC as the deadline so they are built or deployed on parallel.
When do you have more work? What is the workload during the event?
Gerard: Mostly before the event. During the event we are in charge of changing the schedule from the Live page and checking on how people are doing for The Game. Usually we would also work on other aspects to help the rest of departments. We used to have to prepare the judging during HackUPC (as there was no time before). Hopefully this year, we will be able to avoid having to do so, as we are developing a better judging platform.
What can we expect from The Game in this edition?
Gerard: YOU LOST. Sorry, no spoilers for the game. You will have to see it for yourselves.
Oriol: I WON. No, okay. I lost also.
Aslo: You can expect it to be finished beforehand.
Bernat: Expect the unexpected!
What do you like the most about working on The Game?
Gerard: Seeing how people go beyond to find clues. Once, we hid a clue in the HTML code that gave a set of coordinates. We didn’t expect anyone to show up, but a few people went and found us. It was fun.
Bernat: The Game is making me learn a lot of things, since to prepare a problem I have to understand it.
Finally, tell us a funny moment in the hackathons you have already organised.
Gerard: Losing the card that had access to all rooms in the venue during Fall 2016. Running to security to get an alternative card activated and finally finding out it was on top of a table in the organizer room.
Oriol: Making reminders every 10 minutes for the volunteers so that they didn’t turn off the baggage laptop, as the system was deployed on local. If rebooted all data would be lost, that’s why I did a backup every hour with an USB I had on my pocket all the time. I laughed after the hackathon when I realised I had tens of backups on it (and hey, I still have it). But don’t worry, this year the data is safe. I hope.
Aslo: Marce thought of putting up some coordinates on the The Game page, and people got there before us. It was very stressful because we started to develop it really late and it was like a race with the hackers: us, developing the problems, and the players, solving them.
Meet the team is a series of posts that tries to show the kind of people who are behind a big event like HackUPC and the work that’s required to bring it to life. You can read the rest here: Logistics, Sponsorship and Finance, HackerXperience, New faces, Staff, Design and Photography, Directors, Marketing
