Behind HackCamp 2020: nwPlus’ first virtual hackathon
2020 has been a rocky ride, but HackCamp has been one of the highlights for nwPlus. HackCamp is a weekend-long hackathon bootcamp focusing on inclusivity, diversity, and accessibility for beginners in tech. Previously, it was known as UBC Local Hack Day and you can find out more about the rebranding here.
Learn Day and Build Day spanned across a single weekend. Learn Day is full of beginner-friendly workshops to help hackers gain a ton of new tech skills and prepare for Build Day. Build Day is our annual beginner-friendly hackathon you know and love focused on building, hacking, and of course, teamwork!
HackCamp was our first hackathon of the year. Due to COVID-19 restrictions, it became the first virtual hackathon too. COVID-19 restrictions in British Columbia were becoming more strict as the number of cases increased. We were ready as a team to adapt and learn from the new experience. Learn more about the numbers, what’s new, weekend recap, and our winners!
❓The numbers behind HackCamp 2020
People
- 928 Registrations
- 600 RSVPs
- 146 unique schools
- 64% first-time hackers
- 400+ hackers
- 53 organizers
- 7 sponsors
Facts
- 6 workshops
- $2,500+ in prizes
- 4634 views on Twitch
- 48 projects submitted
- $1200 donated to local BC charities
- 1 incredible HackCamp 2020
✨ What’s new this year?
Everything, as with most of 2020, was different for HackCamp this year. Moving from an in-person to a virtual hackathon meant that we were in completely new territory. The HackCamp logistics team chose the best streaming platforms, built a livesite portal & Discord Bot, organized a mentor panel, and assisted with workshops. Here are some of the other changes.
🙏 Combining Learn and Build Day together — This is the 5th iteration of nwPlus’ first hackathon. Previously, Learn and Build Day was months apart, but we decided to have them consecutively based on hackers’ feedback. That way, hackers would be able to incorporate the skills they gained from Learn Day workshops into their hackathon projects at Build Day.
🤖Discord Bot & Livesite Portal— Throughout the weekend, we used the Discord Bot and livesite portal to help HackCamp run smoothly. The Discord Bot helped with verification, stamp collection, and workshop assistance. The Discord Bot was built by JP and Maggie, you can learn more about it through the Discord Bot workshop. The livesite portal handled announcements, scheduling, and peer judging. The livesite portal was built by 16 contributors: Ian, Jenny, Jacky, Allison, Giulio, Andy, Shu Ting, Daniel R., Kevin Z., Vincent, Anne, Stephanie, Michelle, Daniel S., & Saad.
💰 Charities —HackCamp is a beginner-oriented hackathon and we wanted to encourage learning by donating to charities instead of awarding prizes for “winning projects”. With each project submitted to Devpost by hackers, we would donate $25 to a charity of their choice. The donation incentives learning and finishing a project, instead of competing to build the “best” project! As well, we wanted to support our community during these unprecedented times by choosing local charities. Hackers were able to pick three charities on the list that they wanted to donate to. Click on them for more details!
- BC Children’s Hospital — $475
- BC Food Bank — $275
- Hogan’s Alley Society (BLM) — $100
- Covenant House Vancouver — $100
- BC Disability Foundation — $100
- Downtown East Side Women’s Center — $50
- Vancouver YWCA — $50
- East Van Roasters — $25
- The Nature Trust of British Columbia — $25
⏱️ Weekend Recap
💡 Learn Day (December 5, 2020)
We started with Learn Day with 6 workshops to help beginners gain new tech skills and prepare for HackCamp Day 2: Build Day. We hosted workshops involving web development, Discord Bots, and development environments! Check out all the workshops on YouTube!
🖱️ 9:30am Opening Ceremony
🎒 10:00am Workshop: Hackathons 101
🕹️ 10:00am Mini-Activity: skribble.io
🎒 11:15am Workshop: Setting Up a Dev Environment
🍛 12:30pm Lunch stream
🎒 1:30pm Workshop: Git the Basics
🎒 2:45pm Workshop: Computational Thinking
🎒 3:30pm Workshop: Discord Bots
🕹️ 4:00pm Mini-Activity: UBC Tech Trivia
🎒 5:15pm Workshop: General Web Development
🛠️ Build Day (December 6, 2020)
The second day of HackCamp is our annual beginner-friendly hackathon focused on building, hacking, and of course, teamwork! Hackers new to technology had the opportunity to come together and learn how to build innovative projects together.
🖱️ 8:30am Opening Ceremony
💻 9:00am Hacking Period Begins
💭 9:00am Mentor Panel
📲 10:00am Redbrick Sponsor Booth
🕹️ 10:00am Mini-Activity: Jackbox
🕹️ 12:00pm Mini-Activity: Mascot Dress Up
🐕 1:00pm Lunch with nwWoofs
📲 2:00pm Kabam Sponsor Activity
📲 2:30pm Teck Resources Workshop
🕹️ 4:00pm Mini-Activity: Fireside Chats with nwPlus Team
📲 4:00pm Teck Resources Sponsor Booth
🕹️ 6:00pm Mini-Activity: Jackbox
The whole event was streamed on Twitch!
🏆 Check out our winners!
- Teck Resources — Best Climate Change Hack: Drought Watch
- Redbrick — Best GraphQL Hack: HappyHippo
- Kabam — Best UI/UX Design: Hype!
- SAP — Best Hack that improves Diversity in the workplace: YouRule! & Diversi-Eat
All submitted projects can be found here!
🥰 A HUGE thank you to everyone for making this happen!
- Thanks to our incredible sponsors for supporting our events during this pandemic. 💕
- Our hackers and mentors — A hackathon wouldn’t happen without people participating! Our mentors were fantastic at answering technical questions and offering advice at our mentor panel! 🧑🤝🧑
- The nwPlus team for working hard on making this event happy! 🥾
HackCamp 2020 by nwPlus UBC, Words by Carmen Xu
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