My First Hackathon (cont.)

MHacks, one of the largest student Hackathons in the country, had something like 1,600 hackers and is located in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Even though it was around 1,100 miles away from my apartment I was still able to find some 30 other Florida hackers, and inevitably teamed up with one.

The Florida Crowd

Florida has one of the MOST active communities of hackers in the country! Even though there aren’t any schools in Florida that can (independently) compete with the presence that Waterloo or UMaryland can bring, as a state Florida never fails to represent. In fact, Florida has such a committed and amazing group of regular hackers they created their own entity called Florida Hackers. You can learn more about them here or just check out their website.

Hacks

So of course the purpose of a hackathon isn’t the swag of the food or the over excited Floridians, it’s about the hacks. I like to believe that there are a couple things that make a hackathon hack. First, hacks have to be started at hackathons: this isn’t to say that you cannot prepare for them. Second, hacks have to be stitched together somehow: making a website that just makes a schedule might not be a super hack (unless it abides by the third rule), but making a website that makes a schedule and that schedule changes something else (like makes calls or orders pizza) then that could be a hack. Third, hackers have to learn something from the hack.

I also recommend that hacks follow a strict life-cycle, where they start and end with the hackathon. Unless a hackathon project is so good that it can become its own product or company and you happen to be extremely interested. Under most normal circumstances, I firmly believe that it is best to not sacrifice the new skills you learn from always tackling new hacks. It is also a valuable skill (one that is not talked about) to know when and how to walk away from a hack (or a project).

My Ultimate Take Away

Besides what code is and how to do it good (or at all in my case) the biggest take-away I had from MHacks was that the hacker community is lively, and I wanted to be a part of it. The hacker community is friendly and always willing to bring in more people, such as myself.

Now that I am an active member of the hacker community I have made it a personal goal to do the same and try my best to get people interested in hacking and technology so one day they may also see what it is like to be a part of an amazing, talented, motivated (good-looking), and active community. There is nothing better than finding something you’re passionate about and being to talk to entire groups of like-minded people who are just as passionate as you are!

If you ever get the chance to be a member of a community that impacts your life for the better, it should be your responsibility to pay it forward and help expand that community as best you can.