What to Expect at a Hackathon: From Start to End
Have you ever been curious what a virtual hackathon is like? Look no further!
Below, Lily Deng, a TechTogether New York 2021 participant shares an in-depth explanation of what one can expect from a TechTogether hackathon.
Before TechTogether New York
I’m Lily, a senior studying computer science at CUNY Queens College. Technically, I have attended a hackathon before (StuyHacks 2017), but I don’t count it because I just made pages on a Github wiki, and I couldn’t stay the entire time — it baffled me when attendees started pulling out sleeping bags when I was packing up my stuff.
Needless to say, I’m nervous yet eager to fill out the registration form for TechTogether New York 2021. Will I meet the right people? How will I apply my skills? What will I take away from my real, first-ever hackathon?
Team Formation
My worry eases a bit when I join the hackathon’s official Discord server. Everybody has already written up short introductions of their educational background and assets. A blend of UI/UX designers, back-end engineers, machine learning students — everybody has a niche and I’m still trying to find my own! This is especially evident when I attend the first Team Formation Session on Zoom, reminiscent of speed-dating four people at a time and deciding whether my skills and interests complement theirs.
Fortunately, I meet Samihah, Amina, and Susan; 3 out of 4 of us are first-time hackers, and ultimately, my worry eases when I realize that everybody is patient yet eager to learn something.
Preparing Our Project Trackzu
I attend the Beginners Guide to Hackathons workshop with my teammate Amina, and we highly value speaker Zane Hasnain’s advice: do your research and be considerate of users’ needs. My team and I brainstorm for an hour or two before deciding to build a project that develops users’ healthy habits and kills their bad habits; we can even submit the idea to the Best Wellness Hack category to win a prize!
While the cogs in our heads turn, my team splits — Samihah and Susan draft potential application logos and mascots while Amina and I formulate a short survey to gauge user interest. The next morning, we distribute our short survey, and we analyze patterns and commonalities in the 15 responses it gets. This, along with our quick research on the psychology of habit-building/habit-breaking, is the blueprint for our project.
Building Our Project Trackzu
Since two of my teammates are UI/UX designers and we want to make the work distribution equal, we decide to make a prototype of our application. We use Google Jamboard to collaborate on the drafts of our application and conceptualize essential features like incentives for users and community interaction, as the survey responses had suggested.
After drafting our application’s screens, we try to visualize them with the popular design tool, Figma. Sure, Figma tutorial videos are nice and easy to follow, but I honestly accredit Samihah for being so patient in teaching me basic functions and finding me resources. I also commend Susan for having such a good eye for details and making our project’s octopus avatars come to life.
Amina and I connect together components of our prototype, and I appreciate Amina for putting her best foot forward despite this being her first time working with Figma. Although I do not pull any all-nighters for this hackathon, I find myself sitting at my computer desk, eating instant ramen while frantically clicking away at my mouse. My team and I finally end our voice call at 9 PM, and we relish in our clickthrough prototype.
Attending Workshops and Events
In between my team’s work sessions, I take breaks to attend the hackathon’s events. There are various opportunities in this hackathon, and I want to refresh my knowledge in some workshops and maybe even compete in a game to win something. I attend the Intro to Web Dev workshop with speaker Gabriella Miesner. Although the information is nothing new to me, I appreciate Gabriella’s straightforward way of explaining things, and her sample website gives me inspiration on website styling in the future.
Directly after, I attend the Intro to React workshop, hosted by Elisa Truong. Honestly, I still struggle with concepts in React, but I really want to learn it because it can completely transform a website or application. Elisa’s sample project is creative, and her knowledge of React is inspiring; I’ve bookmarked her Github repo for future reference.
The last event I attend is the NYC Word Game; I compare it to Jeopardy, but with niche NYC trivia. Funnily enough, I end up winning the game with my teammate Samihah! We joke around on Discord about how we’ll put our prize oil diffusers to good use.
After the TechTogether Hackathon
After editing the Trackzu demo video and uploading our project onto DevPost, we wait a few hours for the Closing Ceremony to commence. My team submits our project to The Prettiest Hack, Best Wellness Hack, and The Ultimate Failed Hack prize categories for a higher probability of winning.
When the Closing Ceremony rolls around, the hosts excitedly announce the winners of each category; everybody’s projects have such nice UI and unique inspirations. Although Trackzu does not win any of the categories, I’m still impressed with everybody’s submissions — I wouldn’t have guessed that they could accomplish this much within two days!
As the ceremony comes to an end, I turn to my Discord tab and commend my teammates for being so intelligent and cooperative. Trackzu is something I will always look back on and be glad to have contributed to; during winter recess, I plan to work on an Android application based on Trackzu because I believe it has a lot of potential as a real application.
Future Hackathons
Samihah briefly tells me about her past hackathon experience and lists a few reputable organizations that hold events every year. One of them is Technica, aiming to provide tech resources and opportunities for underrepresented gender groups.
After attending my first hackathon at TechTogether, my main takeaway is to seek out hackathons that highlight inclusivity and empowerment. Having been supported by such intelligent women in my TechTogether team, I wish to recreate that safe environment in my future hacks; hopefully, I can apply what I learned about teamwork and technology from TechTogether New York 2021 at Technica 2021!
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