My first ever 24 hours Hackathon experience…
Hello guys!
Vishnu here. I am back with another article about my first ever 24 hours hackathon experience. If you love programming, I bet you love hackathons too. Hackathons are great way to network with like minded people and improve your programming skills by building real world products.
I recently attended two hackathons organized by iNeuron. They charged zero registration fee, and gave away amazing prizes and refreshments. So, basically we have to build a product within 24 hours based on the problem statement given.
First Hackathon
iNeuron conducts hackathons every week. The first hackathon that I attended along with one of my friends was on June 11, 2022 in Bangalore. I came to know about this hackathon through YouTube. I desperately wanted to participate in this hackathon mainly for two reasons.
One being, the hackathon was in offline mode. It would be a whole new experience, as I had never attended any hackathons before, forget about offline mode.
Second reason being the prizes. There is no registration fee, and iNeuron takes care of all the hospitality including food and refreshments. And the prizes are as follows,
Ist Prize: 2,00,000 INR,
IInd Prize: 1,00,000 INR
IIIrd Prize: 50,000 INR.
So, we had nothing to lose.
We were very much excited, and boarded a train from Coimbatore to Bangalore. I couldn’t sleep properly throughout the night as it was cold, and I was anxious about visiting a new state. We reached the venue around 7:00 in the morning, had our breakfast (not good though) and got inside by 8:00. The hackathon started around 11:00 AM, and the problem statement we took was under Full Stack Development, where we have to build a Food Dine-In app.
Believe me, the time flied very quickly. It was an amazing experience. But, we couldn’t complete the project. I got sick in between (probably because of having a Pizza at 2:00 AM -_-’) and slept around 3:00 in the morning. I was utterly exhausted and gave up soon.
But, what surprised us the most is, we were selected as one among top 10 teams. They gave away goodies and t-shirts, then we bid farewell and returned back home.
Second Hackathon
The following week, they organized another hackathon called Hackathon 2.0 which was powered by Jetbrains, where we have to build applications using Kotlin, the language we’re specialized in. This time we were confident enough to win the prize. We appeared for the hackathon again, which was held on June 18, 2022 in Bangalore.
The prizes were intriguing.
Ist Prize: 2,00,000 INR Cash Prize + 50,000 INR Amazon Voucher
IInd Prize: 1,00,000 INR Cash Prize + 30,000 INR Amazon Voucher
IIIrd Prize: 50,000 INR Cash Prize + 20,000 INR Amazon Voucher
This time, we had a little bit experience. We learned to manage our time accordingly. The problem statement we took was Online Exam portal which required two apps, one of teachers and one for students. I developed the teacher’s part and my team mate developed the student part.
We were coding all night for 24 hours, and I slept around 30 mins in the morning. Finally, we could able to complete the project. Guess what? we secured third place! (We expected more, tbh)
Believe me, it was a whole new experience, and I cherished each moment of the hackathon. Overall, it was amazing, and I would recommend you to attend offline hackathons.
Happy coding :)
