Bumping Down the Hackathon Road

On my first day of engineering college, I had no idea what a “hackathon” was. Never heard the word. I kept coming across things like code.fun.do or Angel Hack and just nodded and yeah-yeah’ed whenever I was asked about it. I was, frankly, intimidated. So I did what would be the normal thing to do, I Google-stormed it. At the end of it, all I knew about hackathons was ideas, code and team work. At that time I didn’t understand, that is exactly what they are.

Fast forward to one year later. I had spent my summer vacation learning Android application development, and I was now familiar with the technologies in this field, and so I teamed up with a friend (also a developer) and decided to take part in the Microsoft organised code.fun.do. hackathon.

Code.fun.do. Online Round

All first and second year students had to go through an online qualifier round in order to be eligible to take part in the off-campus round alongside the third and fourth years. They were given a week’s time to come up with an idea, build a prototype of it, prepare presentations explaining their projects, zip up all files and submit it. They would have the support from Microsoft’s employees throughout the week until their submission. Their projects would then be judged not only on how perfect the prototype is, but also based on the innovation in the idea and on their approach to solving the problem. The top three teams would make it to the final round.

First : The Idea

My teammate and I took it up for the fun of it, to learn and hone our skills, and most of all, for the love of code. First step was : the idea. We needed an idea that had to be unique. It had to be authentic- working on someone else’s idea never works. We live in a land of problems. Pick any problem and try to find a solution for it. It does not have to be a very hi-tech crazy solution to a national security-level problem. Of course, its great if you can do that, but a simple idea is just as good if it is effective and can address the need of the hour. Microsoft even provides a range of themes to help you out with deciding your field of interest.

Next step : Code

Since we were mobile app developers, we were used to making something that would be accessible to everyone on their phones. We decided to “hack for good”, a Microsoft theme for community help. Everything set aside, your code is the ultimate decision making factor for the judges. It is a clear indication of how much you really know. Now I know that seven days is way too less to build an app and that is why, that is not your goal. Try to make an app or a bot or whatever your project is that contains the least number of bugs and contains the most of your highlighted features. The trick is to find the balance between the maximum features you can incorporate in your project that would let the minimum number of bugs surface to the top. Try to keep your code as neat and efficient as possible. It really just shows your tenacity as a coder. It also helps if you prepare before hand. For example, if you decide to use Azure in your project and you touch the topic for the first time during the hackathon, even though you will learn immensely, chances are you will not be able to implement much. Your odds will be better if you have at least a little experience with some tools and technologies. Obviously, this is not a prerequisite and this should not stop you from going ahead and participating.

Team Work

We coded mornings and evenings, before and after classes, sometimes in between classes, kept jotting down points and points for 6 days and it was so exciting. We discussed what needs to be done most immediately, divided the tasks between each other and then implemented it. Bug fixing was a major obstacle we faced. But most of all, coordinating and collaborating as a team was the real challenge. And we were just two people! When you work on real industry projects, you work in teams of much bigger numbers than two.

Team work is not as easy as it sounds. And the outside world isn’t as nice as the organizers of a hackathon are. This kind of industry exposure is the most important insight that you can gain out of a hackathon. It gives you a place to have one on one conversations with company experts. A community based learning platform, hackathons are where you have the freedom to hack as you wish to, you even get resources to help you. It is a great opportunity for all developers and tech enthusiasts to come together and use technology for the better of the world. Ideas. Code. Team work. That’s exactly what hackathons are.