Looking at going to battlehack (from paypal) this weekend. Wondering how it fits in to the "3 types" from the article - doesn't seem to fit in to any of those 3 specifically.
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Three Types of Harmful Hackathons
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Re: Three Types of Harmful Hackathons
#52Looking at going to battlehack (from paypal) this weekend. Wondering how it fits in to the "3 types" from the article - doesn't seem to fit in to any of those 3 specifically.
Hi, I went to BattleHack Austin two years ago (and then to the world finals in San Jose), and really enjoyed it. I would say that it doesn't fit into any of those categories - it's not a business pitch-a-thon, PayPal doesn't own your code, and it's not a recruiting deal either. BattleHack is still the best hackathon I've ever been to. They're doing the BattleHack hackathons to raise awareness of their developer progr…
Thanks for the info. I'm a bit concerned about the 'staying up for 30 hours' bit, but we'll see how that goes.
Re: Three Types of Harmful Hackathons
#53This is why I only attend university hackathons. For the most part, they are still about building cool new tech—not startups. Plus, their increasingly high admissions standards ensure that everyone who attends is either already a developer or eager to learn. Nobody walks away without coding. One point I disagree with in the article is that cash prizes are harmful. I just don't see evidence of that—prizes at universit…
> One point I disagree with in the article is that cash prizes are harmful. I just don't see evidence of that—prizes at university hackathons have been getting bigger and bigger (tens of thousands of dollars) but it seems like the technical sophistication of hacks continues to rise. So long as you have good judges (ie. hackers, not marketers), large prizes just provide an awesome reward for awesome hacks. I think the…
> Competition creates a bad atmosphere and it's better to reduce it to minimum. It's much more fun to care about maximizing the amount of cool projects being created than just fighting for the top spot.
I understand that theoretical viewpoint, but I've never seen it play out that way.
Even at huge hackathons with prizes of thousands of dollars, I see lots of people helping each other across teams. At the end of the day, true hackers will like the money but also like helping out new developers.
I don't like the societal assumption that competition is automatically evil.
Re: Three Types of Harmful Hackathons
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
> One point I disagree with in the article is that cash prizes are harmful. I just don't see evidence of that—prizes at university hackathons have been getting bigger and bigger (tens of thousands of dollars) but it seems like the technical sophistication of hacks continues to rise. So long as you have good judges (ie. hackers, not marketers), large prizes just provide an awesome reward for awesome hacks. I think the…
> Competition creates a bad atmosphere and it's better to reduce it to minimum. It's much more fun to care about maximizing the amount of cool projects being created than just fighting for the top spot. I understand that theoretical viewpoint, but I've never seen it play out that way. Even at huge hackathons with prizes of thousands of dollars, I see lots of people helping each other across teams. At the end of the d…
> Even at huge hackathons with prizes of thousands of dollars, I see lots of people helping each other across teams. At the end of the day, true hackers will like the money but also like helping out new developers.
Thanks for the data point.
> I don't like the societal assumption that competition is automatically evil.
The societal assumption, at least the one I grew up with, was that competition is Good and Awesome, because it drives the Great Capitalist Economy (as opposed to socialism that ended just around the time I was born). But it seems more and more evident that competition has only very limited applications.
Re: Three Types of Harmful Hackathons
#55Running a Hackathon costs money. We can have a hackathon where: - The costs are split up by the number of participants. - A bunch of teams participate. - Everyone builds whatever they want, and they own it. - There can be multiple show-and-tells, to allow teams to ask / answer questions, get to know each-other, and iterate. - Everyone walks away having made some wonderful new friends, having learned a thing or two, a…
A Hackathon cost less money than you'd think. Typically for a day long event you can rent the place, get 3 meals, drinks and snacks including time spent for 40-50 people for about $2k. Which for a business isn't really all that much. Disclaimer I help organize the described at the bottom of the article.
I think it depends where, when and who you are organising it for. I organised a student hackathon in London last year and it cost about £4K/$6K but we had the venue free and some sponsors paying for a meal or two. We had 150 students at the event. If the venue wasn't free we would be looking at another £2K/$3K at the least. The numbers stack up very quickly.