🖖 👩‍❤️‍👩 🤹🏽 Hackathon from scratch in two weeks 🍡 🙇🏼 📜

It so happened that any initiative is punishable. More precisely how: it is better to express ideas when you know for sure that there is still a lot of time to get your punishment for them (ho-ho-ho).

We came up with a hackathon team for university students. We faced two big problems: we do not know how and not enough time. If in the first case we just gathered our will into a fist, then in the second only luck and perseverance helped us.

Step 1. Ideas

Make sure you really have ideas for development.

Example: we have thrown 6 options for a long time, almost all of them turned out to be viable, though in the end we chose one. It was a small project for navigating the OfficeMaps office.
Pretty simple to prepare, it just requires a lot of fantasy options from students - which is good.

Step 2. Discussions

Gather an initiative group. Yes, let it be a group of at least 5 people. We were 7.

Example: developers from different stacks, UX, HR.

Step 3. Preparation

It is very difficult to engage in the "design" of the event itself for some two weeks. Therefore, if you work or are busy with something else, then you will need more time. Do not take chances.

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Make sure the room has “where, what” signs, or make them yourself.
Check the Internet, sockets, take spare laptops and flash drives with you in case of a fakap.
If you have time, be sure to order a cool merch to appease the hackathon participants even before the event. Tune people to your wave!

Example: we had reusable coffee glasses, that is, in fact, mugs in the form of cardboard take-away cups and T-shirts with our technology stack.

Do not forget to prepare certificates of participation. Even if in the end it will be a useless piece of paper - people will be pleased to get something in the paw.
Think of yourself! Make a schedule of duty, let each other sleep.

Step 4. Hackathon

So you have started. Ahead of you waiting for a bunch of waiting times, which is useful in order to periodically shake the participants. We did not arrange any games or calls, we were few. If you are planning a large number of people, then this will be necessary.
Organize at least a small acquaintance of the teams after your presentation of the project.

Night. At night, there must be access to the street to smoke. Hackers who don't have the ability to go out for five minutes are evil hackers.

Step 5. Final

There are no clear instructions, since everything will go differently for everyone. The main jamb that we encountered: the inability to do everything in timing, and this is important. If you stated that the presentations will begin at 4, then it should be so. Be sure to announce the official end of programming, give the teams half an hour to rehearse a speech. When listening, clearly record all the advantages and disadvantages of performances, follow the evaluation criteria. When you announce the results you will need a specific feedback, then your vigilance will come in handy. Never compare teams, do not say that someone was obviously better or worse, give arguments that are difficult to challenge.

Step 6. Rewarding

Turn on some nice music when you announce the winners.

Believe me, you won’t hear the wild “urrrraaaa” from tired participants, I won a lot of money!
The atmosphere will help you smooth the corners and prevent the offended participants from speaking out loud. Honestly, the event didn’t have enough of a ringleader to hold the crowd. Maybe you should take care of this as well ...

When finalizing, take a general photo, give a final speech and offer to fill out feedback forms (it is better the electronic version, we had a Microsoft form). It is also important to dare feedback after the hackathon. Make a link to the photo report, thank in the chat room for participating and remind about the rules for receiving money.

In general, everything is real, the main thing is that there is money and understanding how not to force hackers to pay a tax of 35% for the prize (again, ho-ho-ho) Good luck!