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Ask HN: What makes a good hackathon?

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Re: Ask HN: What makes a good hackathon?

#41

Post by raymondgh »

hyoogle wrote: post #28
raymondgh wrote: post #27

I've been to around a dozen in the past year, here's my take: Stable Wi-Fi. Don't charge for admission. Adhere to a strict fresh code rule. Limit teams to 4 or 5. Stick to your judging criteria (fun, business, innovation -- whatever it is, be consistent from start to finish) and find non-sponsor judges to choose the overall winners of an interestingly themed challenge. Provide enough water and food for everyone. If y…

Hey! I'd love to learn more about your favorites of the ones you've been to- would you mind sharing which ones they were?

Sure! They've actually varied a lot and I've liked them for different reasons, but across all categories I can say I don't like science fair style, really appreciate non-pizza food, and won't wear low-quality t-shirts more than once.

Competitive: Salesforce, Capital One, and AngelHack events are fun because there's a clearly defined goal and some concrete metrics. I really enjoy seeing the pitches at the end and thinking about how we all interpreted the challenge and responded.

Creative: YC Hacks, GitHub Music Hack Day, Yo Hackathon, and Brainihack all elicited some pretty fun stuff. I missed the Brainihack this year though, too bad! Techendo was pretty cool too, albeit small.

Cooperative: Some hackathons had lots of small prizes or none at all. Paypal Battlehack was really fun, a Change.org hackathon was stress-free and friendly, and I learned a lot at a Swift "hackathon" where even the smallest accomplishments were celebrated.

I haven't been to any college hackathons yet, but I'm looking forward to Hacking EDU in October!

Re: Ask HN: What makes a good hackathon?

#42

Post by jarofgreen »

Freeboots wrote: post #40
jarofgreen wrote: post #37

Judging - consider not having any. None at all. You can talk all you want about "collaborative atmosphere" but if your introducing judging then there is going to be friction, and the better prizes there are the more friction there will be. What's most likely to happen is you'll get ppl coming in preset teams who will studiously avoid talking to anyone else all weekend, which can really kill the atmosphere for anyone…

This would be pretty interesting. Personally, Im super competitive, and I've found most others are too. About 4 hours from presentations at my first Startup Weekend, we drastically needed to downscale what we were trying to do. I asked my team "Do we want to build this product, or do we want to win?". All of them said "Win." And so we did. But that app that won Startup Weekend never saw the light of day, so what was…

:-)

It all goes back to what the point of the hackathon is really.

For hackathons that are about people actually starting a project and continuing it afterwards (and certainly the Startup Weekend organisers I've talked to locally say this) I think this is the massive blind spot of hackathons - in reality very few projects will continue afterwards. I've seen many things tried to help improve this, and I don't know what the answer is - but I haven't seen anything about the judging helping.

(Edit: congrats on winning tho ... um, after what I've just said!)

Re: Ask HN: What makes a good hackathon?

#43

Post by delinka »

devanti wrote: post #7

I've done a lot of hackathons, and even the most high profile ones usually suffer from one of the following: 1. Internet and Working space If you're expecting a high turn-out. Make sure the facility has a comfortable work environment and enough tables and chairs for everyone to work in. Ensure that the internet will not overload due to too many connections. This is a very common problem 2. Judging Different hackathon…

"...weren't built ahead of time." Where's the line for this? Surely I'd be permitted to reuse libraries (that I've written; that I got from github; whatever) and perhaps the "project" is a smattering of glue. Am I disqualified because 99% was written "ahead of time"?

Re: Ask HN: What makes a good hackathon?

#44

Post by juliendorra »

devanti wrote: post #7

I've done a lot of hackathons, and even the most high profile ones usually suffer from one of the following: 1. Internet and Working space If you're expecting a high turn-out. Make sure the facility has a comfortable work environment and enough tables and chairs for everyone to work in. Ensure that the internet will not overload due to too many connections. This is a very common problem 2. Judging Different hackathon…

Concerning judging, I advise everyone to… just drop it! We started dropping it when we launched Museomix[1] as it made no sense for the mood and culture we wanted to create: inclusive, cross-disciplinary, community building oriented.

Back in 2010 and 2011 with the first ArtGame Weekends we had a jury and a small money prize. Most people didn't in fact care for both of them: it was just not an integral part of what motivated them.

On the other hand, jury and competition induce several issues. One is explicitly stating from the get go that only some teams and projects will have merits. Another one is falsely relying on the prizes as the solution to what happen next (we gave you 5000€, now go build v1).

Jury and winners in hackathons are event a PR trap! With a winner, you now have to focus your post-event PR solely on the winner, loosing the possibilities of picking and talking about the right project to the right person.

So, I now advise my community friends and my corporate clients to not have a jury in their hackathons, but to instead have, for example, a Mentor panel. They are not there to elect a winner, but to close the event, create a demo goal, and most importantly use their knowledge of the ecosystem(s) to trace a path for the teams to pursue their project (by for example referring them to the right persons or organizations).

One of my very clever client decided she would instead of having a single prize just give away all the tech she bought for the participants to hack with during the event -- using what would have been prize money! Estimotes, micro video projectors, WeIO and Arduino boards… to all participants. ("Come back home with your project"). It makes sense, and can cost the same. [3]

In a Museomix edition the reward is intrinsic: you live, build and show your prototype directly in a museum for 3 days. And everyone get to share this reward, organizers included!

As collective / co-creative events organizers, ask yourself if you really need to add more selective competition in a world where there is already so much of it, and ask yourself if having a jury really align with the culture you want to create. Do you want to create/mimic an academic/school culture? If not then maybe you just don't need jury.

[1] http://museomix.org/en [2] http://we-make-money-not-art.com/archives/2011/05/art-game-w... [3] http:/cultureexperiencedays.adami.fr

Re: Ask HN: What makes a good hackathon?

#45

Post by bemmu »

jarofgreen wrote: post #37

Judging - consider not having any. None at all. You can talk all you want about "collaborative atmosphere" but if your introducing judging then there is going to be friction, and the better prizes there are the more friction there will be. What's most likely to happen is you'll get ppl coming in preset teams who will studiously avoid talking to anyone else all weekend, which can really kill the atmosphere for anyone…

How about peer to peer judging? At the end everyone gives a score on different aspects on say 10 other projects, like in Ludum Dare.

Re: Ask HN: What makes a good hackathon?

#46

Post by jarofgreen »

bemmu wrote: post #45
jarofgreen wrote: post #37

Judging - consider not having any. None at all. You can talk all you want about "collaborative atmosphere" but if your introducing judging then there is going to be friction, and the better prizes there are the more friction there will be. What's most likely to happen is you'll get ppl coming in preset teams who will studiously avoid talking to anyone else all weekend, which can really kill the atmosphere for anyone…

How about peer to peer judging? At the end everyone gives a score on different aspects on say 10 other projects, like in Ludum Dare.

I've never done Ludum Dare, so I'd be curious to see how that worked and what kind of vibes it set up between teams. After all, it's still judging.

Re: Ask HN: What makes a good hackathon?

#47

Post by bemmu »

jarofgreen wrote: post #46
bemmu wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about peer to peer judging? At the end everyone gives a score on different aspects on say 10 other projects, like in Ludum Dare.

I've never done Ludum Dare, so I'd be curious to see how that worked and what kind of vibes it set up between teams. After all, it's still judging.

It feels less arbitrary when you have a lot of different people looking at what you made, all of whom also just spent 2-3 days tirelessly toiling on their own projects.

Re: Ask HN: What makes a good hackathon?

#48

Post by devanti »

delinka wrote: post #43
devanti wrote: post #7

I've done a lot of hackathons, and even the most high profile ones usually suffer from one of the following: 1. Internet and Working space If you're expecting a high turn-out. Make sure the facility has a comfortable work environment and enough tables and chairs for everyone to work in. Ensure that the internet will not overload due to too many connections. This is a very common problem 2. Judging Different hackathon…

"...weren't built ahead of time." Where's the line for this? Surely I'd be permitted to reuse libraries (that I've written; that I got from github; whatever) and perhaps the "project" is a smattering of glue. Am I disqualified because 99% was written "ahead of time"?

libraries are fine of course. in higher profile and more competitive hackathons, i've seen quite a few teams who complete the whole project (or re-use the same project from another hackathon).

Re: Ask HN: What makes a good hackathon?

#49

Post by jarofgreen »

bemmu wrote: post #47
jarofgreen wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never done Ludum Dare, so I'd be curious to see how that worked and what kind of vibes it set up between teams. After all, it's still judging.

It feels less arbitrary when you have a lot of different people looking at what you made, all of whom also just spent 2-3 days tirelessly toiling on their own projects.

Fair enough, but the fact it can be arbitrary is not my fundamental issue. Why does it need to be judged at all? Why can't they just say "Cool, we all made a game!" and then leave it that? What is achieved by having scores, and bearing mind a lot of ppl are going to be disappointed by bad scores, is it worth it?

Re: Ask HN: What makes a good hackathon?

#50

Post by err4nt »

We need more 'hack' and less 'thon'

Too many hackathons try to motivate people with incentives, but that creates winners and disappointed people.

I think a 1-day, or 2-day hackathon with a no pressure show-and-tell keeps people excited, motivated, and happy. It should be about the joy of hacking, but in community and in a great setting where people with different strengths are able to share and try out new ideas. It shouldn't be a race against the clock where everybody does what they do best to compete - it should be a safe setting where people can experiment and dabble and mingle.

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