My first hackathon experience

The dates were declared and it was going to be November 28 and 29. A week before, I was unsure to step into these waters I see others surfing on and probably wanting myself to dive into.

My confidence meter wasn’t zero but I wasn’t sure if I had the fuel to walk the line. I have always loved Hackathons a lot. But what restricted me here, was this concomitant fear of challenging myself with “Mobile App Hackathon”. The new challenges are always difficult for a person because it urges the one to step out of his comfort zone and embrace the unknown. In this case too, taking up the challenge to build a functional mobile app, when I find myself well acquainted with programming on server side, was substantially ponderable. There were so many questions that were racing through my mind? Was it the technology, the team, the transport, or heck, even the health that stopped my gait? I just didn’t know.

But there were some other hashtags which started emerging. #completeNewExperience #learnings #interact#awesomepeople#coders

And finally I made up my mind by setting an alarm at 3'o clock for morning on H-day. Made sure I won’t be left alone to boredom if things don’t turn my way, by making my friend tune in to the hackathon.

We left from Poona at 3.30 in the morning and kissed the vibrant air of Bombay around 8. Wow the sight of the BSE market itself was mesmerizing.

Entering the hall packed of hackenthusiasts(hackathon enthusiasts) I was enthralled by the crowd, and I knew the moment I stepped in that I was at the right place.

But still breaking the ice for team formation was not that easy. Throughout my life, I have learnt only 1 thing,

Looks are deceptive

And sure I didn’t want to form a team that way. And believe me no one comes with a writing on forehead “Am a java developer” “Am a android guy” “Am a showoff developer”

It was all pale when suddenly, one of the organizers came in and said:

Those who have not formed teams or partially formed teams can come over the stage and give few description about themselves, so others can join your team or make you a part of their team

That was a much needed relief and we were happy we could finally form a team with someone we have never met. Then came in a pride of developers who were either looking to join a team or were looking for couple of folks to join in their awesome team. Different teams had different needs. Some were hunting mobile developers, others for a specific language developer,some needed business analyst and others just needed someone with ideas. All of them came with a 2 min short briefing on their needs.

And then it was all about jigsawing at the right place after mingling and interacting with all these folks.

After much search and interaction we finally formed a team of 6. 2 were server side developers, 3 backend developers and 1 analyst.

Then came in the problem statement, were we punched/kicked/discussed and amicably came into the conclusion of selecting 1 out of 3 problem statement.

The next 36 hours passed like never before.It was all coffee and code.Since it was in India, beer was not an option for coffee :D. The organizers had to make sure the event didn’t look like sleeping beauty post midnight.So a lot of games,puzzles,food set the hall into lively and spirited mood.

It was all fun and finally everyone started giving out the presentations and showcasing on their product. It was a great learning as we saw different groups solving various sets of problems in their unique way.

Winning was never on our mind, but the urge to solve the problem and build product itself was a strong motivator.

Yeah!! At the end of those 36 hours I had still had the energy to travel a more 200km to reach back to Pune.

Hackathons are a really great learnings! Waiting for my next one :)