Getting ready for a hackathon: how to squeeze a maximum of 48 hours

How often do you not sleep 48 hours? Do you drink pizza with a cocktail of energy coffee? Watch without a break in the monitor and with trembling fingers, knock on the keys? Often this is what hackathon members look like. Of course, the two-day hackathon online, and even in the state of “boosting”, is hard. Therefore, we have prepared for you a few tips that will help you more effectively engage in coding and brainstorming within 48 hours. You can test these tips in practice very soon - before May 12, registration for the “Digital Breakthrough” competition is taking place, which will be held in the summer in 40 cities of Russia in the hackathon format.

Avoid unrealistic goals

Your main opponent is not other participants, but time. Hackathon has a clear time frame, so do not waste precious hours on the elaboration of unnecessary details of the project. In addition, excessive stress will interfere with clarity of thinking. A minimally viable product that works without failures can already provide a winning position on the hackathon.

Choose your team deliberately

Any, even the most excellent idea, can be overwhelmed if there are people in your team who do not understand / do not share your vision or approaches. At the time of the hackathon, the team should become (no matter how trite it may be) a single mechanism.

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Who to invite to the team at the hackathon? All participants must be passionate about coding, otherwise how can they hold out for 48 hours in a closed space? Let the composition be diverse, do not be afraid to “dilute” your technical team with a designer or even a marketer — while you are inspired to code, they will help you to put the accents and highlight the merits of the product to protect the jury. All team members should be able to work under time pressure and stress, because discouragement of one of you can disrupt the entire project - just do not meet the deadline.

Be inspired by the work of your colleagues.

Analyze the experience of colleagues: remember your last hackathon, think about which of the participants you remember and what (someone else's mistakes are also useful). What tactics did they use? How was the time and tasks distributed? Their experience, successes and failures will help you to make a plan of action.

Use the version control tool

Imagine: you are already in a state of flow for a long time, working on a prototype, you suddenly find a bug and cannot understand how many minutes or hours ago and where exactly you made a mistake. Obviously, you don’t have time for “start anew”: in the worst case, you just don’t have time to go through all the stages again, and even if you do, you can show the jury only something very raw. To avoid this situation, it is logical to use a version control system, for example, git.

Use existing libraries and frameworks.

Do not reinvent the wheel! No need to spend extra time writing functions that can be implemented using libraries and frameworks. Better focus on the features that make your product special.

Use quick deployment solutions

The main idea of ​​the hackathon is to create a working prototype for your idea. Do not spend too much time on the deployment of the application. Find out in advance how you can quickly deploy it in the cloud, for example, AWS, Microsoft Azure or Google Cloud. PaaS solutions such as Heroku, Openshift or IBM Bluemix can be used for deployment and hosting. You can be a great sysadmin, but as part of the hackathon, it's best to simplify your task as much as possible, so that your entire team can focus on coding, deployment, and testing.

Select a person to present in advance.

The presentation is very important! It doesn’t matter how good your prototype is if you don’t get it right. And vice versa - a well thought out presentation (and we are not just about slides) can save a damp idea. Make sure you do not forget all the important aspects: what problem does your concept solve, where should it be applied and how does it differ from existing solutions. Decide in advance how much time you will need to prepare the presentation and who will be the face of your project. Select the most experienced team member who has experience in public speaking. Nobody canceled charisma.

Learn in advance nominations and topic

Hackatons are often supported by companies from a specific industry. Find out if your hackathon partner companies have their own nominations - for example, for using their services in their work.



Do not neglect to study the topic of the hackathon! Think in advance and sketch a list of ideas that can be implemented in the competition.

Think what your team needs for comfortable work?

Prepare in advance all the technical support for your team: laptops, extenders, cables, and more. Not only technology is important: make the architecture blanks, pick up libraries and other tools that you may need. You will have to work with your head, take care of the brain: dark chocolate, nuts and fruits contribute to the intensive thinking process. Someone helps energy, but do not interfere with their coffee, it will not benefit health.

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And the last: do not be afraid and do not doubt. Tune in to the work wave and achieve results. Hackatons are not only about competition, but also about networking and about inspiration. The main thing is to enjoy what is happening around. After all, victory is not the only thing you can carry with you.