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If you're curious on how to ~actually~ win hackathons, I wrote up my experience winning 1st place at HackUVA (University of Virginia's 24-hour hackathon) and th

If you're curious on how to ~actually~ win hackathons, I wrote up my experience winning 1st place at HackUVA (University of Virginia's 24-hour hackathon) and then coming to judge the hackathon the next year on behalf of Facebook (and seeing the competition from the other side of the proverbial table) https://www.nicksingh.com/posts/win-hackathons-a-how-to-guide https://www.nicksingh.com/posts/win-hackathons-a-how-to-guid...

johnjj257 5y ago
ROFL no one cares what a shill
- dang 5y ago
  We've banned this account because it has been breaking the site guidelines a ton. If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. They're here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
huehehue 5y ago
Small world, I won Best Mobile Hack at hack.UVA a few years ago :) Notes: - This was one of many I snuck into after I had dropped out of college - It was a mobile app that let you scan an ISBN and would pirate the book for you. The results were sourced from your usual trackers, so 1% of the time it would work and 99% of the time you'd get <NSFW>.
- OnlyMortal 5y ago
  So a 99% success rate then!
t0mbstone 5y ago
I've actually won three separate hackathons, some of which had fairly large prizes (such as $5,000 in cash to our team). Here's my quick list for how to win a hackathon: 1. Pick team mates who are rock stars (I had at least one "10X" programmer on each of my winning hackathon teams). This is probably the most important point. Nothing is more important than who you choose as a team mate. 2. Pick a project that is easy to explain that also captures peoples imagination. The more people that your idea resonates with, the better. 3. Make use of frameworks and toolkits. Now is NOT the time to learn a new language (if you want to win). The faster you can stand up a functioning prototype, the better. 4. Put together an awesome demo. I've literally seen someone win a hackathon with an amazing presentation and zero working code before. Don't underestimate the importance of the presentation!
- NickSingh 5y ago
  Great tips! Resonates with a lot of what I wrote about!

johnjj257 5y ago

ROFL no one cares what a shill

dang 5y ago
We've banned this account because it has been breaking the site guidelines a ton. If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. They're here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

huehehue 5y ago

Small world, I won Best Mobile Hack at hack.UVA a few years ago :) Notes: - This was one of many I snuck into after I had dropped out of college - It was a mobile app that let you scan an ISBN and would pirate the book for you. The results were sourced from your usual trackers, so 1% of the time it would work and 99% of the time you'd get <NSFW>.

OnlyMortal 5y ago
So a 99% success rate then!

t0mbstone 5y ago

I've actually won three separate hackathons, some of which had fairly large prizes (such as $5,000 in cash to our team). Here's my quick list for how to win a hackathon: 1. Pick team mates who are rock stars (I had at least one "10X" programmer on each of my winning hackathon teams). This is probably the most important point. Nothing is more important than who you choose as a team mate. 2. Pick a project that is easy to explain that also captures peoples imagination. The more people that your idea resonates with, the better. 3. Make use of frameworks and toolkits. Now is NOT the time to learn a new language (if you want to win). The faster you can stand up a functioning prototype, the better. 4. Put together an awesome demo. I've literally seen someone win a hackathon with an amazing presentation and zero working code before. Don't underestimate the importance of the presentation!

NickSingh 5y ago
Great tips! Resonates with a lot of what I wrote about!