Jun 21, 2024

The Hackathon Experience

15 things I learned from it

6 June, 2024. It definitely wasn't a perfect hackathon. I mean, it were only the three of us: Jonak, Anubhav and Me. And we didn't even finish the project.

Even though we picked a fairly simple thing to make (or so we thought), we struggled with even the basics. Maybe picking Python as our language was a bad decision.

We were making flomo, a flowmodoro CLI for productivity enthusiasts. The idea was to create a stopwatch, which stops on user input, divides the time by 5, creates a timer with that. We also wanted a clean and aesthetic UI. And that made things a lot more complicated.

we do have a working model now tho, check it here.

We had to use threading, nested while loops and essentially bloat our code. A lot of unforeseen circumstances.

We got only 40% ahead in our project.

Here's 15 things that I learned from the experience:

1. Things are not as easy as they seem. Don't underestimate things, especially if you don't know much about it.
2. Writing code is far more easier than figuring out the Logic.
3. Linux >>>>>> Windows.
4. People love watching people do crazy stuff.
5. You need a strong mathematical and logical reasoning foundation to code efficiently.
6. LLMs are a programmer's friend, if they know how to use it. But overusing doesn't work. It tends to produce a lot of mistakes in the long run.
7. Things don't need to be perfect, but you have to do your best.
8. Hackathons need to be more than 1 day long.
9. Managing a hackathon requires you to be patient and hear others out. You also have to make sure that people are on track and not doing some crazy unnecessary stuff.
10. Learn to use Git. It is TOO powerful, you can do some good stuff with it. Thanks Jonak ;)
11. Open-Sourcing is the new future. And people seem to be getting more and more aware of it. We need to create more open-source software.
12. DIY spirit >>> "i'll just buy the stuff". Bro it's more eco-friendly.
13. You tend to get distracted pretty quickly, use methods to keep track of time while co-working and making things together.
14. Keep an open mind and learn from your fellow programmers. Trust me, they KNOW some pretty cool stuff.
15. You'll make a ton of bad decision without realising them. The best way to minimise damage is to try getting back on track.