How to organize a hackathon as a student 101. Part Two
Hello again. This is a continuation of the article about the organization of the student hackathon.
This time, I’ll tell you about the problems that appear right during the hackathon and how we solved them, local events that we added to the standard “many code and eat pizza” and some tips about what applications to use for the simplest organization of events of this scale.
After all financial preparations are completed, the most interesting stage begins: site preparation. Here you can find the largest number of problems and you can’t even think about it. Let's start with the order of different snacks and equipment. Two main problems immediately follow from here: who will receive them and where does all this add up? Let me remind you once again that all the organizers are students, and the hackathon itself took place on January 26-27, which is exactly in the middle of the trimester. For each order we needed 4-5 people (considering the scale of the event, we could easily get 20-30 boxes of drinks at a time) and the only option for us was to search for volunteers among other courses. You can of course be used to search for a group on Facebook, but Slack is our national candidate. For each delivery, you can create a separate channel, integrate them into Trello (an application for creating action lists) and then add those who agreed to help and record everything that was received in Trello. So, everything is received, even suppose that the delivery was in the correct building of the university (a couple of times the imperial was brought almost completely to other buildings in South Kensington, they could have been delivered to the University of London by mistake) and that we have enough people and several carts for transportation of especially heavy loads, what next? Where to put all this cargo? Each large university community has its own small warehouse for such events. Unfortunately, in a 2x3 room, most likely everything will not fit. This was where university sponsors came to the rescue. Several tons (!) Of drinks and snacks were delivered to our partner from the student union. A small digression. Each department has its own union: engineering, medical, scientific and geological. Our engineering has about 2 free rooms (only tsss, I do not know how much university rules follow) were completely (!) Converted into warehouses for one event. Then there will be a time-lapse of how we got these things from there. The back then did not thank me at all. Link
It is very difficult to find where to contain all these things, it is even more difficult to distribute them then correctly. For reference: the entire zone 3. Lower and 2 upper hackathons. The sizes are approximately equal and in general there is no problem with the distribution. Until there are people with special dietary preferences. Vegans, vegetarians and many others. We always send the questionnaire in advance to know how much to order. Naturally emails are forgotten and lost. Therefore, we always add 20% to the main order in the form of spare special options, such as margaritas with gluten free dough. Expensive? Undoubtedly. But the last thing we need is belligerent vegans who lacked food without animal products. Modern problems require modern solutions.
')
Suppose that everything miraculously fit. Magic, not otherwise. Even that all smashed in places overnight. What's next? Remember I was talking about “Swag”? Yeah, and by the way, he has every sponsor. And everyone has a minimum of 200 people, and big sponsors have a total of 300. It’s also necessary to keep, but the main thing is not even that. I also said that we have our own “Swag”. And here it is for 500 people. And the problem is its fragmentation. Many things came the evening before the hackathon, and there was no chance of being ready for that. Moreover, all these things must be carefully packed in bags. 500 pieces. 500, Carl. So I had to organize an improvised conveyor: there were vouchers for alcoholic drinks at the bar, T-shirts, sets with paste and brush, mugs, stickers and I don’t even remember how much else. And despite the fact that we ordered this beauty from different suppliers and they all came at different times. I had to sweat to a bonus to the organization of the event itself and also earn money at the factory. Spoiler: we finished the training at 4 am, and the beginning at 8:30. I only stayed until midnight to be on duty the rest of the night. Then follows a rather boring part about the arrangement of tables, the arrangement of extension cords and other mandatory trash.
The time has come for X. Sponsors come early, settle down, tactically lay out a “swag” to attract more students. From memorable: one company during the opening said that there are two types of employers. Those who pay well respect their employees and give them creative development. Like for example (company name). And about the second all the other sponsors can tell on their example. This phrase became a candidate for the prize for the best meme (about his presentation at the very end of the last article). Students arrive as early as possible to snatch more things for free. Here are a few words about how we let them in. Tickets are purchased on Eventbride, and all organizers have an application for scanning. Problems begin when participants do not read the conditions: the minimum age is 18 years, for example, or bring your passport with you, or even tickets cannot be transferred after the deadline (three days before the hackathon). Many, unfortunately, have to refuse. But from what I remember: the two who had forgotten passports from London, so they just went home and took them with them. Those who gave the tickets we were allowed to go after everyone else, scanned the tickets so that then their owner did not try to slip through the bonus.
Now a little about the problems with the tickets themselves: there are only about 400 of them. Plus a few for graduates, as a farewell gift. Initially, we kept them on the university website, but it steadily fell 10 minutes before the start of sales, up to 30 minutes after the start, and they were distributed quite randomly among the participants. I am already silent about race conditions because of which we sold an average of 20-30 more than it should. The solution was the site Eventbride. It copes well with the load, the tickets fly on average for 1-3 seconds per lot, they are released exactly on schedule. But there is another problem: the honesty of the participants. By the first link of Google you can download and configure the bot, and ideally we try to intimidate such clever men that we will cancel their tickets. In reality, it is almost impossible to prove that you did not use / used the bot. Tickets, in turn, are divided into Imperial / all others and (slight discrimination) for our students there are several more. To help the department, such rules.
Further more specific problems of preparation. One of the events we hold closer to midnight is an open bar. Naturally, in the hackathon culture in the absence of sleep, this is not always a good idea. Therefore, few people visit. But those who come are always satisfied, drinks are free (up to 5 GBP inclusive), a rather large supply of vouchers, plus it is a great way to relax after a whole day of uninterrupted hackathon. The disadvantages are more likely for the organizers: many on the sly, while the organizers who are tired of everything are watching, have time to get on well. Deal with them of course to us. But never directly reached a strong problem. It is important to note that, like the hackathon, the evening bar has a sponsor. And this year they have come off in full, having bought to all those present the “huntsman of the bomb”. It was very difficult to explain(what I’m completely talking about, pour it still) that the half-dead participants on campus are a little different from those whom they want to hire into their company and stop this chaos at about the 30th cocktail. After this was the legendary delivery of chicken Nandos.
She is legendary because the owners of local restaurants came along with the delivery men to see who decided to take a few thousand chicken on Saturday night. In total, it took us 2 hours and 30 volunteers to unload everything and distribute between the zones. Photos are attached. Do not forget to shout "vegans here", and they will eat vegetarian food instead of vegan and will curse later. Another memorable event was karaoke. There already everything came off, including us. Just imagine: 200 people occupying a lecture hall at 2 am, singing absolutely random songs (I sang Let It Go, my sister would be proud). It was fine, but again typical problems: dragging equipment, adjusting, agreeing with the security and the library (Saturday night is a very popular time of the visit) so that we will not be expelled. The guards were offered to sing, refused.
All this, of course, fun. But. Hackathon goes for two days: participants can come and go. Organizers no. In total, I slept 3.5 hours in two days and 5 hours a day before the start. And that was because other volunteers were forced (and going to the bar made itself felt). You could sleep either in a separate room with yoga carpets, or where it would turn out. I slept in a chair, the law is not prohibited, I sleep where I want. The main thing is to have 3 people not sleeping for each hakzon. Another task was to periodically check the projector, since it could overheat and we didn’t have enough money for repairs. To deliver it, we needed 6 people and 2 carts. In general, the case was for the tonsils almost all the time. At some point we began to distribute popcorn and cotton candy, again, we were preparing. Fire safety rating plummeted when I took out the popcorn while warming up “because now they will fly and I won't be left”.
This part went through many problems in the organization and their solutions. Engineers after all. But there are still a lot of things behind the scenes: what were the problems during the hackathon itself, the election of prizes and awarding, how the “smart” voting worked, feedback from sponsors and how we were dealt with cleaning the room a week after. As well as a small flex: this is the first student hackathon, which received coverage on the Air Force. I will also write about this in the next episode of this hakaton saga. In the near future I will begin to write, but for now here is my mail: du216@ic.ac.uk and project website: ichack.org.
This time, I’ll tell you about the problems that appear right during the hackathon and how we solved them, local events that we added to the standard “many code and eat pizza” and some tips about what applications to use for the simplest organization of events of this scale.
After all financial preparations are completed, the most interesting stage begins: site preparation. Here you can find the largest number of problems and you can’t even think about it. Let's start with the order of different snacks and equipment. Two main problems immediately follow from here: who will receive them and where does all this add up? Let me remind you once again that all the organizers are students, and the hackathon itself took place on January 26-27, which is exactly in the middle of the trimester. For each order we needed 4-5 people (considering the scale of the event, we could easily get 20-30 boxes of drinks at a time) and the only option for us was to search for volunteers among other courses. You can of course be used to search for a group on Facebook, but Slack is our national candidate. For each delivery, you can create a separate channel, integrate them into Trello (an application for creating action lists) and then add those who agreed to help and record everything that was received in Trello. So, everything is received, even suppose that the delivery was in the correct building of the university (a couple of times the imperial was brought almost completely to other buildings in South Kensington, they could have been delivered to the University of London by mistake) and that we have enough people and several carts for transportation of especially heavy loads, what next? Where to put all this cargo? Each large university community has its own small warehouse for such events. Unfortunately, in a 2x3 room, most likely everything will not fit. This was where university sponsors came to the rescue. Several tons (!) Of drinks and snacks were delivered to our partner from the student union. A small digression. Each department has its own union: engineering, medical, scientific and geological. Our engineering has about 2 free rooms (only tsss, I do not know how much university rules follow) were completely (!) Converted into warehouses for one event. Then there will be a time-lapse of how we got these things from there. The back then did not thank me at all. Link
It is very difficult to find where to contain all these things, it is even more difficult to distribute them then correctly. For reference: the entire zone 3. Lower and 2 upper hackathons. The sizes are approximately equal and in general there is no problem with the distribution. Until there are people with special dietary preferences. Vegans, vegetarians and many others. We always send the questionnaire in advance to know how much to order. Naturally emails are forgotten and lost. Therefore, we always add 20% to the main order in the form of spare special options, such as margaritas with gluten free dough. Expensive? Undoubtedly. But the last thing we need is belligerent vegans who lacked food without animal products. Modern problems require modern solutions.
')
Suppose that everything miraculously fit. Magic, not otherwise. Even that all smashed in places overnight. What's next? Remember I was talking about “Swag”? Yeah, and by the way, he has every sponsor. And everyone has a minimum of 200 people, and big sponsors have a total of 300. It’s also necessary to keep, but the main thing is not even that. I also said that we have our own “Swag”. And here it is for 500 people. And the problem is its fragmentation. Many things came the evening before the hackathon, and there was no chance of being ready for that. Moreover, all these things must be carefully packed in bags. 500 pieces. 500, Carl. So I had to organize an improvised conveyor: there were vouchers for alcoholic drinks at the bar, T-shirts, sets with paste and brush, mugs, stickers and I don’t even remember how much else. And despite the fact that we ordered this beauty from different suppliers and they all came at different times. I had to sweat to a bonus to the organization of the event itself and also earn money at the factory. Spoiler: we finished the training at 4 am, and the beginning at 8:30. I only stayed until midnight to be on duty the rest of the night. Then follows a rather boring part about the arrangement of tables, the arrangement of extension cords and other mandatory trash.
The time has come for X. Sponsors come early, settle down, tactically lay out a “swag” to attract more students. From memorable: one company during the opening said that there are two types of employers. Those who pay well respect their employees and give them creative development. Like for example (company name). And about the second all the other sponsors can tell on their example. This phrase became a candidate for the prize for the best meme (about his presentation at the very end of the last article). Students arrive as early as possible to snatch more things for free. Here are a few words about how we let them in. Tickets are purchased on Eventbride, and all organizers have an application for scanning. Problems begin when participants do not read the conditions: the minimum age is 18 years, for example, or bring your passport with you, or even tickets cannot be transferred after the deadline (three days before the hackathon). Many, unfortunately, have to refuse. But from what I remember: the two who had forgotten passports from London, so they just went home and took them with them. Those who gave the tickets we were allowed to go after everyone else, scanned the tickets so that then their owner did not try to slip through the bonus.
Now a little about the problems with the tickets themselves: there are only about 400 of them. Plus a few for graduates, as a farewell gift. Initially, we kept them on the university website, but it steadily fell 10 minutes before the start of sales, up to 30 minutes after the start, and they were distributed quite randomly among the participants. I am already silent about race conditions because of which we sold an average of 20-30 more than it should. The solution was the site Eventbride. It copes well with the load, the tickets fly on average for 1-3 seconds per lot, they are released exactly on schedule. But there is another problem: the honesty of the participants. By the first link of Google you can download and configure the bot, and ideally we try to intimidate such clever men that we will cancel their tickets. In reality, it is almost impossible to prove that you did not use / used the bot. Tickets, in turn, are divided into Imperial / all others and (slight discrimination) for our students there are several more. To help the department, such rules.
Further more specific problems of preparation. One of the events we hold closer to midnight is an open bar. Naturally, in the hackathon culture in the absence of sleep, this is not always a good idea. Therefore, few people visit. But those who come are always satisfied, drinks are free (up to 5 GBP inclusive), a rather large supply of vouchers, plus it is a great way to relax after a whole day of uninterrupted hackathon. The disadvantages are more likely for the organizers: many on the sly, while the organizers who are tired of everything are watching, have time to get on well. Deal with them of course to us. But never directly reached a strong problem. It is important to note that, like the hackathon, the evening bar has a sponsor. And this year they have come off in full, having bought to all those present the “huntsman of the bomb”. It was very difficult to explain
She is legendary because the owners of local restaurants came along with the delivery men to see who decided to take a few thousand chicken on Saturday night. In total, it took us 2 hours and 30 volunteers to unload everything and distribute between the zones. Photos are attached. Do not forget to shout "vegans here", and they will eat vegetarian food instead of vegan and will curse later. Another memorable event was karaoke. There already everything came off, including us. Just imagine: 200 people occupying a lecture hall at 2 am, singing absolutely random songs (I sang Let It Go, my sister would be proud). It was fine, but again typical problems: dragging equipment, adjusting, agreeing with the security and the library (Saturday night is a very popular time of the visit) so that we will not be expelled. The guards were offered to sing, refused.
All this, of course, fun. But. Hackathon goes for two days: participants can come and go. Organizers no. In total, I slept 3.5 hours in two days and 5 hours a day before the start. And that was because other volunteers were forced (and going to the bar made itself felt). You could sleep either in a separate room with yoga carpets, or where it would turn out. I slept in a chair, the law is not prohibited, I sleep where I want. The main thing is to have 3 people not sleeping for each hakzon. Another task was to periodically check the projector, since it could overheat and we didn’t have enough money for repairs. To deliver it, we needed 6 people and 2 carts. In general, the case was for the tonsils almost all the time. At some point we began to distribute popcorn and cotton candy, again, we were preparing. Fire safety rating plummeted when I took out the popcorn while warming up “because now they will fly and I won't be left”.
This part went through many problems in the organization and their solutions. Engineers after all. But there are still a lot of things behind the scenes: what were the problems during the hackathon itself, the election of prizes and awarding, how the “smart” voting worked, feedback from sponsors and how we were dealt with cleaning the room a week after. As well as a small flex: this is the first student hackathon, which received coverage on the Air Force. I will also write about this in the next episode of this hakaton saga. In the near future I will begin to write, but for now here is my mail: du216@ic.ac.uk and project website: ichack.org.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/456174/
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