Excel at Your Next Hackathon with These 5 Valuable Tips
What is a Hackathon?
While the word may raise some eyebrows to uninformed individuals, hackathons are a fun activity where people gather to create a new software solution from scratch, typically in a nonstop dash over a single weekend. Usually hosted for college-aged students, groups are challenged to create and code the “next big thing,” and work with like-minded individuals from different backgrounds to achieve that goal.
With your eye on what could be a substantial prize, it can be tough to keep focus on pivotal points to help you succeed, and — most important — have fun. These are some key tips based on my experience as a sponsor and judge at many hackathons over the past couple of years:
1. Brainstorm potential ideas before the event
You only have a compressed and concentrated amount of time to work at a hackathon. Most events will give you between 24 and 36 hours to complete your entire project from start to finish. You’re going to need as much time as possible on perfecting your project, and many will even forego sleep to achieve that!
While you can’t work on a project before the hackathon starts or use a project you’ve used in the past, nothing says you can’t brainstorm prior to the event. Take time to think about what might be some good ideas for your next hackathon. That way, when you get to the event and form a team, you can immediately bring your ideas to the table, decide which is best and start working right away.
2. Settle on a unique and innovative idea
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen students try to create a service similar to Uber or GrubHub. There are plenty of new ideas out there. The judges want to see them.
Sure, you can rethink how a current product works and “hack” that, but changing one minuscule part of an already popular (and effective?) app and attempting to create a new version in one weekend won’t usually be a success.
Have fun with your idea and make it unique. Once you have an idea, sit down and imagine yourself using the app or product. Then, ask yourself if this is worth it. Try asking others to see if they think it’s a good idea.
3. Use APIs and products from sponsors
Winning the grand prize at the hackathon is a great goal to shoot for, but you can claim other awards, too. Many companies typically sponsor hackathons, Linode included. These companies participate to promote their products and help students use them — free. You can enter a hackathon and find yourself swimming in more free cloud servers, domain names, software, and swag than you know what to do with!
Most sponsors will offer their own prize, which you’ll typically have a chance of winning by using their platform or product. For example, when you build your idea, will it need to accept payments? Consider integrating PayPal through its API, if PayPal is a sponsor.
Got three distinct cloud server hosts at the hackathon and want to use each respective service? Load balance your application between Linode and the other server hosts to qualify for each of their prizes. It should be fairly easy to implement numerous sponsors into any software-based project you build.
4. Create a backup presentation
A vast majority of hackathon projects involve websites or some other type of software that involves web activity. Now, imagine presenting your project to the judges in a room packed with a thousand hackers all on the same Wi-Fi network.
There’s a good chance something could go wrong.
Notwithstanding a clogged Wi-Fi, other issues can arise. Solutions built in one weekend are prone to small bugs and glitches since you may not have the time to properly debug every line of code. The judges do understand that.
However, to save yourself from such calamities, create a backup presentation. Beyond all else, I highly recommend taking a video of your hack doing what it’s supposed to be doing.
If your hack doesn’t work come judging time, no amount of red-faced explanation will convince the judges that it did work — earlier. However, if you’ve shot a video, you’ve got visual proof of the project working the way you intended it to work.
If your hack is a website or app, take a quick screen recording of your using it. If it has a more visual appeal or is a hardware hack, use your phone to video record it.
Especially important: if you are selected as a finalist, you’d probably need to make a second presentation before a large audience in a different location. Sometimes setting up your hack in a new location and reconnecting hardware can be susceptible to technical errors (especially with popular VR-related hacks). Having a video demonstration can be a life — and award — saver.
5. Challenge yourself
Winning prizes at hackathons is great, but the biggest takeaway is the knowledge you gain from the event. Collaborating with new people and learning new technologies that you’ve never used before are two of the best parts about hackathons.
Broaden your horizons. Don’t settle for revising the same hack you’ve made time and time again. Instead, challenge yourself to learn something new in the process. Furthermore, make this a talking point in your presentation. Let the judges know that you’ve never before made, say, an Android App, and that you learned how to create the app you’re currently showing them all in that same weekend.
A final caveat: while you should make learning something new a goal at any hackathon, don’t take on so much that you won’t complete the project. The judges won’t understand that.
Hackathons are intense, productive, rewarding and fun. From my perspective as both a participant and judge, I’ve found that these five tips can help make the most at any hackathon.
Do you have your own tips or experiences at hackathons? Feel free to comment below. If you found this post worthwhile, please share it with your followers.
