My first hackathon and what I learned from it.

April 30, 2016 @protohacknyc

The week before the hackathon, I decided to immersed myself to get to know at least 2 of 3 programs (Invision and Balsamiq) that will be used for the 12-hour event. I perused pictures online and try to imagine what it would be like to spend that much time with people you’ve never met. All I know is, I have to experience a hackathon so I get a better understanding inside the UX design world I’m trying to transition to.

I was more anxious than nervous when Sam who I met the night before at protohack’s Happy Hour, yelled my name out to join his team. Arden, Yufen, and Sam had big smiles as we all grabbed the furthemost area at GA—the library with 2 very comfortable couches. They start out quickly. They threw out ideas fast and furious and here I am trying to catch up. The tech words flying all over the place! Questions at left! Assumptions at right! More techno babbles! And that went on for about 4 hours non-stop. Lunch came, little cupcakes here, coffee and tea there. I felt like I was drowning and waited patiently for my turn to have a screen in place. Finally…I found my place. Phew! Finally, I was able to move things on the screen, change colors, delete colors, argue with a smile, and that went on for another 4 hours. Then it was time to turn in our idea…well it was Sam’s idea. Since Arden, Yufen and I didn’t have any to begin with, we helped extract the idea out of Sam’s head and make it come alive. We spoke to mentors on standby and gave us all kinds of great support.

My takeaway from this hackathon experience? Many but the one that stood out the most was realizing that I don’t know squat. In my working world, I always have something to say. In my working world, I made sure my ideas was up there in the forefront. But not here. Here, I learned to be patient and I learned to wait for my turn in this collaboration of very smart and young brainiacs.

So while we all waited to hear from the judges, I introduced myself to other peeps and talked about their ideas. Each of them were just as tired but very enthusiastic about the entire experience.

The judges were mostly start-up founders. They announced the team in 5th place, team in 4th place, the team in 3rd place….the four of us Sam, Yufen, Arden and I just knew we’d win. Sure enough, they called the project #simpleaccountingformusic aka SAM won 1st Place! The team members were: Sam Tall, Music Talent Manager; Arden Evers, Project Manager/Social Media, Yufen Chen, Research and Media Consultant and myself, AD and UX Designer.