See previous post Enterprise Hackathon

What is it?

Utter chaos.

A group of students and other university-affiliated people who, singly or in teams, are trying to build things that are impressive enough to demonstrate in front of a group and thereby win some kind of prize or acknowledgement. Also, an event where people are encouraged to use their creativity to use their learned skills to build something- this is usually a really useful “learning through doing” experience.

Why host one?

  • Because it is great for students to brag about and put on their resumes
  • Because everyone will learn from each other
  • Because people will build really cool things that they can continue building later and CHANGE THE WORLD (hopefully for the better)

As a student, what should I do at a hackathon?

As quickly as possible, sit down with yourself or a few workmates to BRAINSTORM! Write down every crazy idea that comes to mind, even if it’s totally impossible to build. Remember to think of all the cool APIs you could use: twitter, google maps, NASA, yelp, hackernews. Google for APIs to use in hackathons; there are entire lists for this; remember to search for them.

After ten minutes or so, stop brainstorming. Pick the awesomest thing on the list. Pick the easiest thing on the list. Plan out how you would build them. Cut it down to something that sounds possible. Try to imagine what tools you would need. This should take no more than ten minutes; you will be mostly completely wrong but it is very useful to start with have a plan; it gives you a path out of the “but we could do ANYTHING!” frozen-ness that many hackathon participants get stuck in.

Get started! You will be completely wrong about what tools and how easy this will be. That is totally ok. You might switch ideas several times during the event, or get to the end of one idea and need to use a new one.

Every time you think of a new awesome thing that you could do for the hackathon, put it on the list. Share the list with everyone, including your competitors! Sharing ideas is inherently more useful than hiding them away. Even if you are doing the same project as someone else, that is ok. You are probably doing it entirely differently and will end up with different projects.

Maybe work with new people; maybe work with friends. Seek out alumni, professors, industry professionals, everyone. Ask questions. “What is the coolest thing you can think of to do for this hackathon?” “How do you think would be good to build X?” “Want to work on this with us?”

Common failures when running a hackathon

[How to not fail] Publicize more!!

No seriously, even more than that.

  • Make a facebook group
  • Tweet
  • Get your university representatives to tweet
  • Get your professors and faculty sponsors to send an email (or equivalent) to their classes
  • Posters on campus
  • Flyers in the dorms
  • School newspaper
  • SHOUT REALLY LOUD
  • everything else you can think of

[How to not fail] Order lots of food!

You probably know this already, but lots of college students are highly motivated by food. Keep the food somewhere where you have to actually enter the hackathon area in order to get it.

Pizza is cheap. Do pizza. Make sure that special dietary needs are satisfied- vegetarian, gluten, etc. (You can have an optional registration form field for this) If money isn’t limited, get something better than pizza. :)

Never make the attendees wait to eat the food in order for your speaker to finish a presentation. Just give the presenter more time later. Everyone will be happier.

[How to not fail] Record the awesome things that you do!

  • Take photos (Get permission from the attendees. Do not take pictures of anyone who wants you to not take their photo. If you do, apologize and delete the photo.)
  • Have everyone tweet or email or (whatever) their in-progress and completed-wins. Harvest this for publication.
  • If you have a central chatroom, use that to glean details of awesome projects
  • Send out a post-hackathon email with a list of awesome projects, awards, photos… do this promptly! Within 24 hours. Within two hours or so is totally doable if you take notes during the hackathon.

As a hackathon organizer, you probably won’t get to hack much. But try!

[How to not fail] Help the attendees talk to each other!

Make a central chat- irc, google huge-hangout, Slack channel, anything. Let people say “I need someone to help me with a basic python problem” and have a hope of getting an answer. make a physical noteboard where people can write messages like “I need help with the twitter API over near the printers / seat 27A” or “We need a group member who understands iOS programming over near the south window”

[How to not fail] Invite the professors!

Professors like to build things too. Make it very clear that they are welcome. If they feel like participating, they will form stronger bonds with the students, which can only he helpful for the students’ professional and academic lives. Obviously you can’t require professors to do anything, but they might feel like also taking a minute here and there from their own project to help students. :)

[How to not fail] Involve industry professionals!

The recruiting orgs of many companies (including both large and tiny companies- startups are great!) would be delighted to send an employee or two to help people use their product’s API, in exchange for a minute on stage.

[How to not fail] Don’t take (too much) time away from hacking!

All your sponsors would love to hog the stage forever. Don’t let them. Give each of them one or five minutes- maybe at intervals throughout the day, especially during the time when people are eating.

[How to not fail] Invite alumni!

Alumni new and old could also benefit from this hackathon. Invite them in and they will help your current students, both with code and understanding the professional world. Also, your university’s Alumni Relations department will love you and might pay for extra food/swag.

[How to not fail] Nametags! Swag!

People who have visual markers of belonging to the same group are more likely to talk to each other. Use this. Also everyone likes swag. If you are low on budget, only give swag to people who ‘win’ presentations. I.e. present something demo-able at the end.

[How to not fail] Let there be quiet places

It can be very hard to work when surrounded by hubbub. Make sure that there are designated hack spaces that are also clearly marked as quiet spaces.

Resources

Colleges

Companies (for college students)

Bigger lists

Bibliography