TechTogether Miami: A Weekend Worth Remembering
Samiksha participated in a TechTogether hackathon before, but she didn’t compete for prizes. This time around, Samiksha was determined to find a team and work towards competing for prizes at TechTogether Miami.
Read below an in-depth article of Samiksha’s experience.
I’m Samiksha, a freshman in high school based in North Georgia. I recently participated at TechTogether Miami– my second hackathon ever. I learned about online events such as these through a girl’s coding club that I was a part of and was naturally curious to see what it could offer. Participating was an amazing decision as I not only learned more about technology, but also found an amazing community of people.
Team Building
At my first hackathon TechTogether Atlanta, I did not compete as there were too many issues with my team; however, this time I was determined to find someone who was willing to work with me. I attended two team building activities that TechTogether Miami offered, both of which were fairly intimidating as everyone was either a college graduate or someone looking for a career change.
That did not do well to my confidence as a 14 year old so when I was teamed up with people who had highly professional tech backgrounds, I almost felt as if I would drag them behind. Fortunately, I had attended TechTogether PreHacks the week before and had DM’d a few kids my age to ask whether they would attend TechTogether Miami and compete in it. I got back in touch with Prasi, a freshman in high school, and was ecstatic when she said she’d be happy to work with me.
The Project
We started brainstorming ideas on Friday evening over Zoom and tried to find problems we could solve. After almost an hour of thinking–our brains almost fried–a thought popped up into my head. We could create a website regarding CryptoCurrency! It was something people had an interest in because of its rapidly growing pace, but also something where people had no idea where to start learning.
It also fit right in with one of the categories listed on the TechTogether Miami DevPost. Right as we figured out our idea, a notification popped up on the bottom right side of my screen, “Intro To Figma Workshop.” As we were both interested, we left the Zoom call and attended the workshop.
We realized it was very helpful as it could help prototype our project. It even had CSS attributes listed for us! Since it was getting a bit late for me(I was in the EST time zone while she was in PST) I asked whether she could create a basic layout for me to look at in the morning and end the day there.
Building the website itself was very challenging considering I had very little HTML and CSS experience and this was my first-ever official project. Prasi worked more in the backend so this was uncharted territory for her as well. I scoured the internet and found a YouTube video (lifesaver!!!!) that explained start to finish how to create a website and linked the GitHub repository for the website. Because of the workshops, extremely helpful may I mention, I had some knowledge on how GitHub worked and used some of the code in our website.
There was a slight issue–we didn’t have content. My knowledge on crypto was basic to say the least. I had only recently started to understand that investing was almost nothing like The Game Of Life. Once again, me and Prasi headed to our best friend, the internet, and researched content. Because of this, I learned SO MUCH about cryptocurrency like what a Blockchain was and how to use trust wallets.
There were also many bumps as we tried to complete our project, especially at the last minute (extremely stressful), but we asked a few mentors and we somehow had a final product to be submitted. Both of us weren’t expecting anything; however, at 7 pm EST we got an email saying that we won Best Financial Literacy Hack with Robinhood!
The Experience
TechTogether Miami was an amazing experience! The mentors were extremely nice, the workshops were great, and the amount of resources provided were endless. Through this, I learned that people of any age and someone even with little to no tech skills can participate.
As I mentioned, both me and my partner had little to no experience in our project and it was a huge jump from our comfort zone. It just goes to show that you need not be an expert in technology to create something that you are interested in making.
You may be thinking something along the lines of what I was thinking when I first registered: I barely know anything tech-y. I literally won’t be able to experience anything. If you are thinking this, don’t. Just go for it. This is your opportunity to meet new people, and learn new skills without having to fear judgment. You may think it seems scary or even intimidating at first but you won’t know that it actually is unless you try!
More Hackathons!
If you asked me two months ago what a hackathon was, I would have stared right back at you with a blank look on my face. Now, I will be attending TechTogether Chicago and will definitely continue to attend many more hackathons in the future!
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