Everything you need to know about Hackathon
I got introduced with Hackathons and Group Projects in past few years.
Yep, you heard it right. This was the first time I started building projects in a group since school.
Now while I was building team for hackathons I’ve realised few things in my journey as a team lead which many “influencer” doesn’t mention in their guides.
What is Hackathon ?
Let me just give a brief introduction of what hackathon is. It’s a competition in which student developers or working professionals or anyone technical/non-technical people come together and form a team and work on an issue/topic given by that particular hackathon collaboratively in bounded time. Now that the solution can be by a website/application/IOT based/ etc. Basically a product building competition where you have to solve real world problems. And based on your solutions they’ll declare whether you won or not among 100+ participants from all over the world.
And if you wanna participate in hackathons you should be OVER ENTHUSIASTIC.
Now you can participate in teams or alone.
I’d suggest you to participate in team of 4 to divide the workload because the judges who’ll be declaring the results prefers mostly the finished products instead of incomplete products.
Now when you are choosing your team, you should think 100+ times before choosing your team.
Why?
There are many reasons which I’ll explain and yes I’ve faced those problems while participating in hackathons and working with teams.
Let me divide these sections in a proper way:
A. When will I participate?
When you’ve built two personal projects on that particular tech-stack and you are confident enough as well as have a clear concept about those tech-stacks .
B. How to find these hackathons?
Ans: There are a number of platforms which gives updates about hackathons that is happening all around the world organized by colleges/companies/institutes, etc. namely MLH, Unstop, DevFolio, HackerEarth, Hackathon.com, Devpost, etc. You can also get updates from LinkedIn ,Twitter, Dev.to, etc. You can get into discord communities to get updates about these events.
C. Online/ Offline?
Hackathons are conducted both online as well as offline. After the world was hit by covid waves, institutions chose online platforms more to conduct these hackathons. So these events are conducted in both online as well as offline.
D. Why should I Participate?
Hackathons can actually help you to deal with different types of teammates, bring competitive mindset, get introduced to the adrenaline rush, can network a lot, increase your friend circle, meet new people, get opportunities, be better at solving real world problems as well as get prizes cash prizes if you win the hackathon, goodies like T-Shirts, caps, etc. , cool stickers, bags, etc. and who knows you can also get internship opportunities by winning a hackathon conducted by a company as the cherry on the top.
E. How to find Team-mates?
Now the toughest task of a hackathon or a group project is this. Yes, building products is much more easier than this. I’ve participated in more than 10 hackathons by winning few of them and I’ve faced many issues with my team maximum number of times. I don’t want anyone else to face these issues to be honest so I’ll point out those one by one on how you can find team-mates.
You can find team-mates either by knowing them personally through your colleges or school or social media platforms, etc.
Now how will you know whether you should take him/her as your team-mate or not. As I have said it earlier that if you are actually trying to participate in a Hackathon you should be over-enthusiastic so same goes with the teammate.
1. Every member of your team including you should be over-enthusiastic to participate in the hackathon and win it by solving the real world problem .
2. Every member of your team should have atleast one skill to contribute in your product.
For example: If you have taken part in a particular hackathon with your team which has team members of W,X,Y,Z. If your team is building a website and you(W) have taken the charge to design the website in figma, then X should be able to build the frontend part of the website, Y should be able to build the backend part of the website and Z should be able to do the technical writing part of the website like contents. Divide the task before taking part into the hackathon and concept should be clear and should be confident enough with their role.
3. Every member shouldn’t mix their personal life problems with the professional ones. And should be clear about their problems if they face while building the website. There should be good communication between all the team members and should be co-operative. They should be calm and cool in nature with a winning mindset.
4. Choose your teammate after having a conversation about their projects. They should have dealt with their role before while building a personal project.
For example: If your team wants to build a website using MERN stack and one of your teammate works with MEAN stack with zero knowledge about REACT then your team may face an issue while building it on that particular day because you’ll be given limited time and building a fullstack website isn’t from scratch implementing own idea is not a matter of joke.
F. What to take with you on an offline hackathons?
A laptop, charger, powerbank are must. Water bottle, air-pillow, dry food, wallets are important. Make sure you keep hydrated. Water is necessary for peak mental performance.
G. What was my experience?
I participated in Hackathon named Appwrite Hackathon held online on Dev.to and participated in Hack2skill Hackathons and specially MLH Hackathons and Events.
Got goodies for participating, got learnings
Now it’s time for you to go, participate and win the hackathon.
You can send me few bucks after you receive cash prizes from those hackathons. 😉
See you there 😎
Keep coding #️⃣ , keep rocking 🚀
