With the 2016 MLH spring season well underway, a lot of you will be applying and heading to your very first hackathon. You’ve filled out the registration form, cleared your schedule for the weekend, and booked your flights. Now, you’re wondering, “what’s next?”
Having attended plenty of hackathons over the past few years, many of us at nwHacks realized there are a lot of things that we wished we had known beforehand. While there might not be a way for you to get rid of these first-time-jitters, there are lots of ways you can prepare yourself and make your first hackathon a memorable one! Here are a few tips we wish we’d known before attending my first hackathon.
- Form a team beforehand.
Sure, you will and should meet some awesome new people at a hackathon, but why worry about finding the perfect team during the event? Bring some friends along for the ride, or at least round up some people that you know you can work well with, and start building your team before the hackathon starts. - Choose a project you can finish by yourself.
Not everyone who attends a hackathon’s opening ceremony sticks around for the ending ceremony. Nor do teams always function as cohesively as expected. When things go south, you still want to be able to finish the project you started, so pick something with a manageable scope. - Forget about bringing your resumé.
Sure, resumés are great for telling people about your work, but hackathons are a unique space where you can actually show off your work. If you want to attract the attention of companies, build something relevant to their field, or build something using their API. Show, don’t tell - Bring twice as many tools as you think you’ll need — especially for hardware hacks.
You won’t have time to buy hardware, tools, or electrical parts during a hackathon, and even if you do, that’s valuable time that could’ve been spent hacking. If you think you’ve packed just enough parts for your hack, keep packing! - Plan out your hack in advance.
Don’t go into a hackathon empty-handed — come up with a project idea a few days before the hackathon starts. Do your research so you know what you’re getting into and how to make your hack work, so that you don’t end up working on something that takes a PhD to figure out - Practice, Practice, Practice!
Practice on a familiar stack/microcontroller/program of choice for a few weeks before you arrive — if you have time, you can even build a small project. Know your core competencies really well so that you can contribute right away when the hackathon starts. - Don’t worry about winning.
When all is said and done, this is your first hackathon. Enjoy it! Have fun, work hard, and make new friends. Revel in the experience and networking opportunities you’ll have. And once it’s all over, look for another hackathon to attend in the future — after all, why does your first hackathon have to be your last?
Interested in joining a hackathon? If you are on the west-coast, checkout nwHacks in Vancouver. Apply at nwhacks.io
