Behind HackCamp 2021: nwPlus’ virtual beginner-friendly hackathon
Starting off the 2021/2022 school year (and hackathon season!) with HackCamp 2021, we brought back our popular beginner-friendly hackathon as three days of learning, hacking, and networking, spanning across two weekends in November 2021.
HackCamp, previously also known as UBC Local Hack Day in past years, was on its second iteration this winter. We started the festivities with Learn Day, in the first weekend of November, and Network and Build Days on the second weekend of November. We used our learnings from our virtual events last year to facilitate multiple days of activities for hackers, mentors, and sponsors alike.
Read more to learn about HackCamp, in our recap below!
The numbers behind HackCamp 2021
- 35 published submissions on Devpost
- 536 total hacker registrations
- 12 countries
- 43% gender minorities
- 6% current high school students
- 50+ majors/intended majors
- 63% first time hackers
- 21 mentors in Discord
Event Highlights
Learn Day Workshops
Learn Day, like previous years, is a collection of workshops before our hackathon festivities that will help you set up, design, and build your very own project from start to finish! These workshops are also designed to be a gateway for students to learn more about the tech community and all it has to offer.
- ABCs to Scoring Interviews, Workshop Slides
- Intro to Git, Workshop Slides, Code Snippets
- Intro to Technical Interviews, Workshop Slides
- Impostor Syndrome / Computational Thinking
- Everything You Need to Start as a Web Developer, Slides, GitHub Repository
- Intro to OOP Python through a web app (Django), Workshop Content
- React in an Hour or Your Money Back
Network Day Festivities
Network Day is a full day of networking with sponsors, industry professionals, and peers! We ran Q&A Panels, Sponsor Booths, Speed Networking, Team Formation Events, and IceBreaker Activities.
- Covalent Q&A with Leilani and Ganesh (and our host, Ben from nwPlus)
- Introduction to Web 3 and Blockchain Data Workshop with Emmanuel and Harish from Covalent
- Stretch with nwPlus (hosted by Jessica and Maggie from nwPlus)
- Women in Tech Q&A Panel with Anita, Jennifer, Laura, and Sofia (hosted by Victoria from nwPlus)
- Fireside Chat with Kevin (Kevo) and Victoria (Vic) from nwPlus
- Non-tech in Tech Q&A Panel with Carol, Victoria (hosted by Jacky from nwPlus)
Build Day Hackathon
Build Day is our annual beginner-friendly hackathon, focusing on building, hacking, and of course, teamwork! Students new to technology had the opportunity to come together and learn how to build cool projects together.
- Mascot Dress-Up Activity (hosted by Philman, Alex, and Carmen from nwPlus)
- Art Stream (hosted by Philman and Irene from nwPlus)
Our Winning Projects
Every year at HackCamp, there are so many spectacular projects that are full of creativity from our hackers. Through collaboration as a team, hackers work together with mentors and sponsors to create something they are proud of. We are so proud of all of the submissions at HackCamp this year.
Check out the winning projects at Devpost, for their demo videos and their descriptions as well.
All in all, we had so much fun organizing HackCamp 2021, and we hope you had fun joining us too! Our event could not have been possible without our amazing sponsors, Covalent, East Side Games, and Amazon.
Keep up to date with nwPlus shenanigans by following our social media (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter), or subscribing to our email list at https://nwplus.io/. Till next time!
