There's a hackathon in town, any ideas?

Or watch from a safe distance?

Participate if you can and want...

All competitions are nice, and you get to learn and experience.

I like them a lot.

@antorqs Seems like you have had some experience with this sorta thing. What sorta ideas wins these things?

@baan I've participated in several programming competitions (ACM and alike).

It'll depend on the competition but I'd say practice, a lot of practice.

It's like any other sport competition, the winners are always those who practiced more.

Practice gives you experience in different scenarios, then you don't get "surprises".

For example, in ACM programming contests, you get to bring printed code (only printed in paper material). Top teams, those who won or ended at the top of the table, always carried big-folders-like-books full of solved problems.

@baan Other than that:

-Keep calm all the time, is just a competition, if you desperate nothing will work.

-Think of the edge cases always. If it works for the samples it doesn't guarantee it will be correct. Always try edge cases.

-Have fun and make friends.

@antorqs I don't think this competition is quite the same. We are supposed to come up with a socio economic idea,. Make a mock, develop and present it to them within the time frame in there. And they basically choose the best . I think the best idea and concept will win here than a fully functioning app

Get down and get your hands dirty boy! It doesn't matter if you win or lose! Hackathons are always fun and its a cool opportunity to connect with people. + you'll be able to push to your limits and learn to improve for your next event 🤘 It took me 3 Hackathons which I wasn't even able to do shit and then win on my 4th.

@baan I see, it is other kind of competition.

Well if it has been done before, you can check what have done winners in the past (or in other similar competitions) but more importantly, how.

How did they pitch their idea, how they presented it and stuff like that.

Is this sponsored by a company, like "Come reinvent the future of X with our tech Y"? If so, just run, they are trying to push their technology.

If it doesn't seem exploitative, just go and see what happens.

@baan yes acm is mostly proving you know how to utilize datastructures to solve math/logic problems, hackathon on the other hand let you think marketable products using new techs. I’ve participated both , we won hackathon for AR last 2013 for a pokemon-like voice activated monster game.. research whos the sponsor and what is their business model, focus on that while utilizing the required tech.. IMO, this is just a company’s way of crowdsourcing for a new product. Theres fun during the event but when you win, theyll bother you to put it to prod.. at least thats my experience... tip: dont use your dream project as your hackathon entry. Its not worth it