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by angersock
4114 days ago
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Do what we did: host a "technical" hackathon. Make it clear that it is just a couple of days to dick around with new technology, try your hand at some artsy stuff, or just do something goofy. Make prizes optional (or just goofy), and give everyone a chance to present their work. Last hackathon I attended at a university (last month, I think) was pretty lame, except for like one sound-transmission hack. I think that students are being encouraged more to focus on businesses or theory and less on the playful stuff. Possibly because the "playful" stuff will get you expelled, arrested, or both these days. :\ |
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The first place won because they created a custom piece of hardware, but really it was just a couple of parts bought at radioshack and a simple arduino controller. Hardware wins big at hackathons.
The second place was a typical hackathon CRUD app.
The third place was a Minecraft bukkit plugin that allowed gambling bitcoin in a minigame. It was at least a novel idea, and it did directly interact with the blockchain (as opposed to using some kind of SaaS API), so there's some technical merit as well.
I think there was one other interesting one in the top ten, and a couple others that weren't selected for prizes.
Part of the problem is that when you make a more interesting hack, it's harder to judge whether or not you'll be able to finish it within 24-36 hours. So you end up with too ambitious a project that you fail to complete, or with too simple a project, that while novel, fails to impress.
Hackathon judges need to start favoring half-baked interesting hacks over polished "Uber for X" apps if we want to see more variety.