Hackathons 101: Your Guide to nwHacks
To some people, spending 24 hours+ in one space isn’t the most appealing thing in the world. But for hackers, that sounds like a weekend of learning new things, building cool things, and sharing all of it with like-minded newfound friends.
Whether you’re a hackathon veteran, first-year student, Javascript junkie, or tech newbie, welcome to nwHacks 2019. 🎉
For a more complete timeline of your hackathon journey, check this out from another one of our nwPlus organizing team!
nwHacks is the largest student-run hackathon in Western Canada. Every year, more than 600 students from the Pacific Northwest participate in our event. We host hackers annually in the Life Sciences Centre at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver campus.
Liam Armstrong, a second year arts student at UBC, is passionate about student learning and curating opportunities that boost learning outside of the classroom. As one of nwHacks’ logistics coordinators, he ran an introductory workshop to hackathons for first-timers. We’ve adapted his workshop content to share with all of you.
Let’s get started. 👩💻 👨💻
Here’s a rundown of our tips and recommendations!
- Turn problems into projects quickly by defining requirements, designing a solution, implementing based on design.
- Break down your technical problems and ask a friend!
- Interact with the sponsors, mentors, and fellow hackers around you.
- Say yes to mini-events, workshops, and everything else that hackathons entail! But don’t forget to take care of yourself.
- Push yourself to submit a project and prepare for your pitch!
- In the days before, read everything the organizers send, form a team, and pack everything you need.
- Get hyped and stay hyped!
Make the most out of your hack!
Yes, you may only have 24 hours at nwHacks but that’s plenty of time to turn a genuine problem into a valuable project. A good place to start your planning is with the software development life cycle. At hackathons, focus on the first three steps: requirements analysis, design, development. By defining your requirements well at the beginning of the hackathon, you will be able to constantly revisit that established vision to avoid pivoting in too many directions!
- Find and analyze a problem
- Design and build a solution: mockups, system design, key features
- Build and implement based on design
- Test that your solution works as intended and solves your desired problem
- If you have time, analyze what isn’t working, and go back to step 2
“Be ready and willing to learn new tech and try new areas” — Liam Armstrong
What are the typical roles in a team? How should I prepare? Read more about what you can do to prepare for your next hackathon!
Oh no, I’m stuck!
Have you tried…
- Breaking down the problem. Trust us, your new language/tool isn’t a lost cause. If you can’t articulate a specific question, you haven’t broken it down enough.
- Google, your friend? Stack overflow? Documentation?
- Talking to fellow hackers? Hackathons are all about community and bringing people from different technical backgrounds together!
- Asking mentors? They have volunteered their weekend to spend time and help you! Oftentimes, they’re looking for mentees as much as you’re looking for them.
Unless you’re doing something really out there, chances are, someone in the room has been where you are!
Embrace the hackathon community!
Don’t show up just to code, show up to find inspiration. Don’t show up to shut down ideas, show up to brainstorm solutions and hear other perspectives. Take a break from your code sprint to meet one of the other 650 hackers around you.
Mentors want to help! Ask them the specific questions that you couldn’t quite find a clear answer to. The clearer you are, the easier it will be to find a mentor with the right expertise. Ask them what they do and what their tech journey has been like. When you ping them on #ask-mentors, don’t forget to specify which table you’re at!
Sponsors love hackers! That’s why so many companies dedicate resources to making hackathons happen. Find out about the cool things our sponsors are doing and the people that make things happen! Go on, interact with them.
Immerse yourself in the hackathon experience!
- Attend mini-events, workshops, opening ceremonies, and closing ceremonies! Take note of the words that inspire you, the stories that drive you, and the projects that stun you.
- Check Slack often! (And win some prizes in #slack-contests!)
- Take a nap! And please, take care of yourself. If you think you’ll operate better with a quick nap, you probably will. Maybe even alternate sleeping with your teammates? If you choose to stay up, we’ll fuel you with enough Yerba Mate, Sparkling Ice, Red Bull, other food sponsors, and more!
You can submit a project! You can do it!
The code you create doesn’t have to be perfectly commented, perfectly spaced, or perfect anything. It’s a hack and you’re allowed to focus on completing a working demo for time’s sake. You can always fine tune your project after the hackathon!
Winning projects are not always the projects that are the most complete. Focus on completing a working demo even if it’s not decked out with all the features you hoped for.
Check out our Devpost for nwHacks 2019! You can find the categories for $50,000+ in prizes there! This is also the platform we’ll be using to collect project submissions.
Prepare for your pitch and demo!
Talky, nwhacks 2018’s popular choice winner, had a pitch that focused on the problem gap they were solving combined with its technical wow factors and smooth demo. All of those components are important in a hackathon project!
How you sell your idea is as important as the idea itself. Frame it in terms of your targeted persona and identify why someone would care about solving your chosen problem. Consider even preparing a presentation for visual effect.
Did you have more plans for your project? Show some of your mockups to demonstrate your complete vision, to highlight your design process, and show off the work you did!
Get hyped!
We are too! Before hackathon weekend, set yourself up for maximum success (in learning or in competition)!
- Make sure you’re updated! It may be buried in your overflowing inbox but chances are, the information there is to prepare you for the weekend. Each hackathon is unique in style. Read the organizers’ pre-event emails, join the dedicated Slack workspace, read the judging criteria — it’ll come in handy.
- Form a team beforehand! You can look for friends who are also going, find others with similar goals on #team-formation, or introduce yourself in that channel! Connect with people who are interested in tackling problems in specific categories or even eyeing a particular sponsor prize!
- Pack your backpack! Here are a few of our recommended essentials:
nwHacks is dedicated to supporting the thriving community of technology lovers in the Pacific Northwest region by bringing together ambitious minds for an epic two day event. See you there on January 26–27, 2019! 👋
Words by Serena Chao, Content by Liam Armstrong
nwHacks 2019 🔥, are you ready to make and break things?
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