How to fail a hackathon
14 or 15 years ago, I attended my first hackathon over a weekend.
I was on my own, embarking on a 48-hour coding session to eventually come up with a proof of concept.
I have joined a team of two people on a home automation project.
The aim was to come up with a small web app driving smart light bulbs.
Among the two other people, there was a project leader, in charge of research; a developer in charge of drivers and hardware; and me, in charge of the web app.
It was in Node.js and Angular, not a tech stack I was used to; it took me some effort, but after 16 hours, I managed to come up with an interface and a simple extensible API to add any drivable hardware.
Go from there; I helped the other developer, “reverse-engineering” one of the light bulbs.
Then, I've got the idea of coming up with a simple rules system (e.g., "When the photodetector is below a threshold, switch the light on”).
At this point, everything was more or less working; it was 32-34 hours since the beginning.
My leader got really enthusiastic when he woke up; he asked me to add account management (multiple accounts, sign up/sign in).
It took me 3 more hours, but it made more complex testing, as the workflow was now requiring a full sign-up, email, confirmation, andsign-in.
Then came the demo time; we were 20 groups, and we had two minutes for each project.
During others' demo, I saw my team leader working on our demo; I was not concerned.
Then, it came to our project; my leader started showing the sign-up flow. There was an issue with the Wi-Fi connection when he was finally able to open the empty dashboard, and the time was up.
There is only one rule in hackathons: if it is not demoed, it did not happen.
I have made three mistakes:
- Showing up knowing no one
- Coming up without an idea/project
- Going beyond the MVP
It took me 15 years to participate in another hackathon, and I have made the same mistake, which led to no demo, as my other team member was unable to come up with a UI.
Most of the work in a hackathon is not about the code; it is to build a team around a vision.