HackTM Meta: A Meta Story in Numbers
Just when you thought we couldn’t go more meta than HackTM Meta, we decided to write an article about our first virtual hackathon. We promise it’s going to be just as fun as the competition itself, because whoa, it sure was a blast! But let’s rewind a bit.
It all started when a novel virus decided to basically cancel 2020 and have humanity spend more time indoors, doing some introspection. So, as we sat each in our rooms and dreamt about HackTM, we decided we weren’t going to just “not do it”. After all, we were excited to get back to the hack. So, we regrouped and moved the hack-party online, creating our first virtual hackathon.
For two weeks and a day, we posted daily challenges with storylines that encouraged the 93 registered users to relieve an authentic HackTM experience. Yes, we created a virtual hackathon that reenacted the on-site experience you would have at an offline event, take that! Three of the challenges were designed by sponsors, with Endava and Everseen stepping up to give you some virtual-food-for-thought.
Some of the challenges were loved by all users and some were dreaded because they were well, a tough nut to crack. Our scoring system awarded the same points to all users who solved the challenge, but as more participants cracked the code for each, the score decreased. The “Improvise a HackTM banner” challenge had the most correct solves (46), followed by “On your way to HackTM” with 22 solves. These, as you might imagine, were the most loved ones.
On the other side of the spectrum, the “Designer Missing” challenge received the least love with only 2 solves, which goes to prove, once again, that if you don’t have a designer, you don’t have anything! And let’s not forget the “Ping, no pong” challenge that had all users dropping the proverbial ball, as it was solved by… zero participants.
In total, there were a number of 175 correct submissions and 1389 incorrect ones. Now, those who don’t dare to fail aren’t ready to succeed. That’s how the saying goes and that’s how it also went for the “Improvise a HackTM Banner” challenge which, even if it had the most correct submissions, it also had the most incorrect — an impressive number of 340 to be more exact. “The room is crowded” challenge was also… crowded with 174 incorrect submissions.
We won’t name names. We’ll just let you know the nicknames of the users who submitted the most incorrect answers, just to congratulate them for not giving up. @cristiibm and @k/haderach, we salute you! And, since we’re at the chapter of saying “Hello!”, we also want to give a shout out to @anrek the participant with 6 Discord usernames who joined our virtual hackathon (that’s the spirit!).
The “Improvise a HackTM Banner” challenge was solved in 12 minutes, followed by “Swag Time” that required 24 minuted to be cracked. The slowest challenges to be solved were “Designer MISSING” (9 days, 4 hours, 18 minutes) and “The room is crowded” (5 hours and 27 minutes). The Ping no pong challenge still has a timer on it, because nobody solved it.
Speaking of which, we’re making the challenges & the solutions available to everybody who wants to have a go at them on meta.hacktm.ro. Just for fun, because we’ve already announced our 10 lucky winners and their prizes are on their way.
@KaliAnt and @AnTiDoTe fought the final battle for 1st place.
Congrats to @KaliAnt for winning the competition and to everybody for hacking it meta!
As for what’s next, we’ll keep you guessing for just a little bit longer, but stick around, we have more hacks down our sleeve.
Meta and out!
_ The HackTM team
