[aziaziazi]

Hack the hackathon. My follow-at-your-own-risk pro tip: Find a team not too much into wining and

- connect with others. They’re primarily networking events and are still good for that.

- Don’t bother checking the sponsors boxes too much. Have fun trying technical/product ideas that interest your for any _personal_ reason. Should fit with your team project obviously. If not, keep it for next time and instead:

- peer with others. Peering with a person you don’t know is an incredible social and technical experience, whatever your level difference.

- sleep at night. You want to be rested to have a good and useful time.

- don’t bother too much wining. The podium looks fancy but won’t make much a difference as soon as the doors close. It doesn’t really make a difference for networking, bootstrapping the resume line or having fun. But:

- aim for a MVP or at least something that run and you can show. It’s not fun to tight the last knobs afterwards. Something (anything) functional will make you and your team proud, will assist the resume line and will be fun and memberberries for the future.

[ezekiel68]

Love this. "Be the change you wish to see in the world." I don't mind the sponsors too much. Sponsored events aren't usually at someone's apartment / dorm and somebody's got to pay money for the venue, cleaning staff, food & drinks, etc.

[marcus_holmes]

this, agree 100%

Hackathons are about meeting like-minded folks, and building stuff.

Learning how to get stuff done in a tight timescale is a skill worth learning. Having something that vaguely works at the end is a great feeling.

All the sponsorship and bullshit that goes around it can be safely ignored

[genewitch]

Now, did you mean memberberries? Like famous actor Rich Evans (as seen on Ellen) says?

I can't remember if he says rememberberries and I'm laying down and don't have grep on my phone.

[aziaziazi]

I know it from south park but didn’t intent the sarcastic tone: an anchor to a past moment you had fun and want to remember. I don’t know Rich but might have missed his reference in the sitcom if he predates it. Is it good?

[meken]

I think you meant pairing instead of peering

[ezekiel68]

Unless you're making a joke about geeks not being overly social, "peering" works fine in this context. Basically, "connect with those on your level."

[aziaziazi]

Actually I don’t know the difference between those words and instinctively (I’m not native) use peer for dev context and pair for anything else. I’ll check that out.