Have you been to any hackathons? Have you won? What did you win? Any stories you can share? What were the challenges? What did you make?
i fucking love hackathons. i wasn't able to do any last semester because of my workload but this coming semester i'm going all out. already applied to MHacks, HackGT, and waiting for VandyHacks to open their applications.
last year I went to MHacks, VandyHacks, and Hack The Hill. won prizes at VH for a smart pill container and HTH for a dumb VR game (only managed to win because like 50 people went lol) I didn't win anything at MHacks but we made a car app for GM cars and we actually got to try it on a real GM car. it was dope.
speaking of MHacks, it was honestly the worst hackathon experience i've ever had. the food was good and there were a lot of sponsors, but the venue they had it in was so shitty. it was like the Detroit Masonic Temple and they have concerts and events there but for like 1000-2000 people there were only like 4 toilets in the entire venue that we could use. the only highlight of that hackathon is that there was an EDM concert happening in the same venue on the same weekend so my group hit up a liquor store, got drunk and went to go see it. it was lit.
i also helped plan and organize a hackathon! my uni (University of Kentucky) has been holding CatHacks for three years now and while our turnout has always been lower than expected it's always a fun time.
Not a fan of hackathons. Been to one and it feels too businessy, everyone just wanting the next killer app to make that money. I also don't like startup culture either though so maybe it goes hand in hand.
[QUOTE=WTF Nuke;52494097]Not a fan of hackathons. Been to one and it feels too businessy, everyone just wanting the next killer app to make that money. I also don't like startup culture either though so maybe it goes hand in hand.[/QUOTE]
I went to one for my college and it felt pretty informal, but I didn't go with anyone and everyone else in the "unpaired" pool were all ideas guys, so I ended up by myself. I tried making a little game thing because I couldn't think of any ideas. All the challenges were kind of dumb, so when it came time for judging, I turned mine in and went home before the judging rounds since I knew I wasn't going to win. I grabbed some of the free cookies on the way out.
I dunno, it was kinda cool. If I had any friends I could maybe pair up with them
[QUOTE=WTF Nuke;52494097]Not a fan of hackathons. Been to one and it feels too businessy, everyone just wanting the next killer app to make that money. I also don't like startup culture either though so maybe it goes hand in hand.[/QUOTE]
I've never been to one but I talked to someone who did recently and this is pretty much what they said about it.
Been to loads, won some - highly recommend TechCrunch Disrupt Hackathon. Been to the London one for the past three years, although had some sound issues which completely screwed our demo since it was audio based.
[QUOTE=tschumann;52494725]I've never been to one but I talked to someone who did recently and this is pretty much what they said about it.[/QUOTE]
The one at my university wasn't big, and it didn't seem business-y at all. It did seem like the people there were looking more to network, and show off technical skills to the various sponsors, so nobody trying to make the Next Big App(tm), more just trying to make a cool technical feat that demonstrates your skill.
It seemed, more than anything, like a competition to win some of the gadgets that they gave to the winners
Going to my university's hackathon this year for the first time! Regret not going last year as a freshman. I'm also gonna apply to PennApps and TreeHacks.
yeh none of the hackathons i've been to have felt businessy. it has always just been a fun time to try out something new or compete for the top prizes. hell, half the time we were at VandyHacks we spent playing around with my friend's Vive and listening to kanye west on the echo speaker we borrowed
my group and i try not to take it too seriously. we just build something cool to put on our resumes and maybe win a few prizes on the way.
[QUOTE=proboardslol;52496613]The one at my university wasn't big, and it didn't seem business-y at all. It did seem like the people there were looking more to network, and show off technical skills to the various sponsors, so nobody trying to make the Next Big App(tm), more just trying to make a cool technical feat that demonstrates your skill.
It seemed, more than anything, like a competition to win some of the gadgets that they gave to the winners[/QUOTE]
Yeah I'm sure university ones probably aren't too business-y (though I guess it depends who is sponsoring it).
I don't think the one I was told about was run at a university.
I went to one a couple of years ago and I really want to go to more, but I can't find any nearby that are reasonably cheap to get to and sound fun.
[editline]23rd July 2017[/editline]
We got to the semi-finals and some guy from TechCrunch slated us because our UI looked like hacker news :v:
Sorry, you need to Log In to post a reply to this thread.
