I'm going to a big hackathon run by Chase over the weekend.

>>57052076
Have all of your shit ready before hand, don't do any actual hacking.

>>57052076
If you can join a team before the event, do it. Having a working idea in your head going in puts you at a huge advantage.

Install Node.js. I'm not even kidding. If you don't know Javascript, hit Codecademy right now.

Remember that you're essentially building an MVP (minimum viable product). That is, if you chose to make a startup out of it, you could publish it online as a 1.0 version only a few hours after the hackathon ended. It's gonna be really rough in spots, but it needs to be usable.

Try to have a UI/UX designer on your team. Presentation is a part of how the judges score your hack. (It's not as big as the functionality aspect, but it can still fuck you over if your hack doesn't have at least one thing with parallax. I mean, you are hacking for an investment bank.)

You're there to try to win the hackathon. But you're also there to learn. There's an old saying that goes "Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you'll land among the stars." Roughly translated, it means give it your best. Because even if you don't come close to winning, you're still going to learn more in that small time period than a few weeks of reading books.

Oh, and bring business cards with you. Stay in contact with people you meet. They can become invaluable connections.

And finally, have fun! Don't go overboard on the free food and Red Bull, though. (It's way too easy to eat more garbage than you need at hackathons.)

>>57052076
What went wrong at the last one?

>>57053142
Basically, I picked a project way outside the scope of the team I went there with. Only me and one other guy had extensive experience, but I thought they could at least write a Java server to do some extremely simple calculations.

I was incorrect.

>>57053057
Fuck node.js. I do know JavaScript extremely well, but I'd rather use Rails or something for the server. Especially if we're just building a basic MVP type of thing.

>>57052096
kys

>>57052076
smoke meth to keep you focused and energetic

>>57053356
yeah but other people there are probably only gonna know how to use node.js.

>>57053406
I guess I'll have to learn some of its frameworks, then.

I do fucking loathe JS, though.