Countdown to HackMIT
This year marks the third ever official HackMIT. Even though it seems like there’s at least three or four hackathons happening each weekend, it’s crazy to think that hackathons have only been around for a couple years.
This year our theme is experimentation. What does experimentation mean to us?
experimentation (noun):
It means we want to try unique things to make this hackathon experience larger than life and immersive. We want to make this your weekend to experiment and try new things in your hacks by providing the most collaborative, exciting, and high-energy environment to work in.
Today’s the last day to confirm your spot to come to HackMIT 2015 if you were accepted in the first wave. If you are still on the waitlist, you might still have a chance in our second wave of admissions for the remaining spots.
Here’s some reasons you should confirm your acceptance to HackMIT 2015:
- Get a helping hand on your hack immediately with our mentor queue. We’re officially launching our mentor queue at HackMIT 2015. Simply add yourself to the queue and a mentor will come assist you! We saw amazing results at Blueprint, our high school hackathon, and we’re looking forward to sharing this at HackMIT 2015.
- Every hacker deserves to get judged fairly. We think it’s important for every hacker to be able to show off what he or she built in the past 24 hours. It’s also important to find the highest quality hacks in a reasonable amount of time and reward them. We aim to solve these problems with a new judging system based on the model of pairwise comparison at HackMIT 2015, which you can learn more about in this blog post written by a fellow organizer, Anish.
- Directly shape the HackMIT 2015 experience. In late June, hackers cast their votes to evolve our classic HackMIT logo, and we were able to come out with something quite beautiful. Sometimes, we can have nice things on the internet! You can read more about our social experiment in our blogpost here written by Anish as well. Evolution was just a taste of what we have in store for you. Get ready for some amazing ways to contribute to HackMIT 2015.
- Every hacker deserves a chance to come to HackMIT. This is why we decided to keep our admissions policy as a random lottery. At the same time, we value hard work, dedication, and hacker skill! Following CatMIT, HackMIT 2014's nyancat-themed puzzle, we made DogeMIT, the HackMIT 2015 puzzle, as a way to give our most motivated hackers a challenge. The fastest 50 teams got automatic admission to HackMIT. DogeMIT was a ton of fun for our team to design. Read our official guide written by my favorite co-director, Kimberli ❤.
- We want to give back to MIT. We want to give everyone at MIT the chance to learn how to build their own apps and hacks regardless of experience or major. This year, we’re introducing Hack Week, a series of workshops and fun mixer events to help you build that app and find the team to help you along the way. Hack Week is happening the Thursday and Friday before HackMIT on MIT’s campus. MIT students: keep a lookout for more information about Hack Week! We’re excited to share this with our MIT community.
- Your comfort is important to us. Whether you need a bag of chips or really just want to finally brush your teeth after a long day, your comfort is our priority. We’re setting up our own help queue where you can request anything from staff: power strip, a good high-five, ethernet cable, Red Bull — you name it, we got it covered. We’re stocking your swag bag and the bathrooms with hygiene products like toothbrushes, toothpaste, and deodorant. Sleep is for the strong, so if you want to sleep, we offer hosting with a complimentary air mattress the nights of September 18th and September 19th.
- We want to document your stories and adventures. It’s important that you have a great time at HackMIT 2015, but it’s also important that we help you share these fun moments with your friends to look back at later. We’re going to set up a photobooth, livestream our ceremonies and workshops, and vlog your experiences of building that dream hack. Remember to follow us on all the social media outlets: Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram!
We have a few more fun things in store for you, but we don’t want to spoil it all! Confirm your spot at HackMIT 2015, and come see for yourself! :) Get pumped; HackMIT 2015 is less than 6 weeks away!
As always, if you have a question, shoot us an email at team@hackmit.org!
