Physical Hackathon Tips

There are lots of tips online for how to run a physical hackathon. We recommend reading http://hackdaymanifesto.com  for a full breakdown of practicalities to consider when running a physical hackathon and to get the most of it for both yourself and your participants. However a few of the more important considerations, including those specific to Hackfest, are listed below.

Setting up your challenge on Hackfest

1. Adding a header image

This is vital to helping your challenge look professional. Ideally we need your image size to be 1680x240px to prevent tiling. Having a unique header image will allow your challenge to stand out from the rest but if you don’t want to create your own you can use one of our standard headers.

2. Challenge logo

Creating a challenge logo is another great way of making your challenge stand out from the many others on the site and ensuring entrants remember you. This could either your company logo, or if you are feeling creative we’d also encourage creating a logo specific for the challenge you have set. Do choose a logo that will work well in a square format.

3. Twitter hashtag

Once you have set up your challenge you will want to maximise your exposure on social media too – both before and during the hack so set a hashtag you want to be used and encourage people to use it. Start a conversation about your hack on Twitter and keep it going by interacting with your participants online – it’s a great way of keeping them engaged and getting additional exposure.

4. Add some tags

Maximising exposure requires you to add tags to your challenge too – choose words that are relevant to the subject of your challenge that will allow your challenge to be better found in searches and which allows us to also suggest relevant challenges to the hackers on our database

5. Set dates

The listing will go live immediately so ensure you set the dates and times you want people to arrive at your location for the hackathon and the end time when you want them to finish working on their projects ready for judging. For greatest exposure Hackfest recommends having your listing live for at least two months as this will allow hackers plenty of time to discover your challenge, prepare their teams and come up with ideas. When considering dates think about your audience. Weekend hacks allow people to hack without taking time off from their day to day jobs. However it may alienate those who want to do something else on their weekends. Consider starting on a Friday since that allows the best of both.

6. Timelimits –

A challenge can go on for as long or short a time as you have the venue and facilities for so it really is up to you how long your hackathon goes on for. However do bear in mind that your entrants may have other responsibilities or may need to get back to work. However ensure that you have enough allowed time for the entrants to achieve the type of outcome you are looking for.  A typical challenge might run between 1 and 3 days depending on the complexity of the challenge. You also need to impose a strict deadline at the end of your final day when everyone should finish work, ready for judging, and make sure everyone knows about it.

7. Setting prizes

Here the classic adage points makes prizes is truer than ever. Our scoring system means that the points on offer are as vital as the prize itself since this gives your entrants the chance to move up in the Hackfest league. Add points to every challenge that you set even if offer a cash prize as well. Prizes can be cash amounts or physical prizes – from small (such as mugs or t-shirts) to big (a car!). Remember the obvious point though – the better the prize the more entrants you are likely to attach. Try to make your prizes relevant to the type of challenge you are running though and your audience demographic. Uploading a photo of your prize, if it’s physical, will make it standout even more to entrants in the listings. Please be aware though that you will be legally obligated to provide any prize you offer to the winning team as long as they hit the criteria set out in your rules and if you do not select a winning team within two months we may select one for you and you will still be obligated to provide the prize.

8. Choosing your judges

Choosing the correct judges for your challenge is almost as important as how you set the challenge itself. Ideally you want to choose from a pool of respected industry experts that your hackers will respect and admire. Not only does this help your challenge to look more professional but entrants will be keen to showcase their work to the people that they respect. Don’t forget you can choose anyone from those in relevant media to industry experts in their fields. Ideally you will need between two and five judges but remember not everyone may be available so have a longer wishlist to hand.

You can invite people you know by entering their email addresses and they will receive an invitation to join Hackfest or simply enter the username of people who already on Hackfest and they will be sent your request if they are available for judging.

9. Description

This  is the chance to truly sell yourself. Use the wsywyg editor to enter details about your challenge and include general information about you and why you’re running the hack as well as what sort of outcomes you are looking for. If you are only running one brief it can be included in this section. If you have multiple ones give each its own page. You can then link to prizes on the homepage. In this section you can also introduce any evangelists mentors who will be helping with the challenge.

Pages

Once your challenge is setup you can add additional pages to it by visiting the challenge page. As a logged in creator of the challenge an extra menu appears in the left column of the site. Here you can click ”Add a new page”  which will give you a wsywyg editor with which you can add content for each page you need.

Pages we recommend

10. Agenda pages create a running order of how you want the days to go

An example agenda might be…

11. Writing your brief

As we’ve already said if you have multiple briefs then put each one on a new page. You should explain your goals –such as connecting with developers, creating a community around something, a finished product or simply inspiration. Be detailed and interesting however – remember this is your chance to capture the hackers’ imaginations and make your challenge be the one that they choose to enter. However remember to be realistic about what can be achieved in the timeframe you’ve set.

12. Rules pages

This is where you have to get serious and set the rules for your challenge. Make sure you stick to them and create a standard set of rules that you clearly document before launching your challenge. Any amendments should be highlighted as early as possible but you can tailor the rules to the outcome you want.

13. Directions

Be clear to entrants about where your challenge is and also let them know the best ways of travelling there as well as relevant information such as carparking or public transport options.

14. Judging Criteria

You will also need to explain your criteria for judging and how entrants will be assessed. Remember to include reference to technical achievement, innovation, how well it solves the problem and how well it meets the brief as an example.

15. Submission requirements

Having set the challenge and explained your brief in this section you get to dictate your submission requirements. What are you trying to achieve? What files do you want to see and what is the level of completion you are after? Are you simply after proof of concept or a finished product. Make sure that you document clearly here exactly what it is that you expect to receive from entrants.

It will help the competitors if you provide examples so that they know what you are after. When it comes to the presentation or demonstration by the hackers that have entered these can be filmed and added to the projects on Hackfest which will help you to gain further exposure for your challenge. You may also consider using a Github repository if the entry has a coding element.

16. Supply any relevant data

You need to also ensure you supply the relevant data for your challenge – such as access and links to relevant APIs or SDKs that you want used in your challenge

Useful Tips

17. Evangelists / Mentors

We encourage you all to appoint evangelists and mentors to your challenge – these are experts who will be able to answer questions from entrants, provide help and support, oversee what’s going on and provide help and support before and during the event

18. Ownership of hacks

It is usual and recommended that the rights to projects remain with the competitors since retaining the rights can put off entrants since the hacker community generally believes in open source. However you are free to, independently of Hackfest, negotiate with the entrants to work with, or buy the rights to, projects after the event and of course great prizes help too!

The only exception from this will be for users with a custom account, who will have the option to retain the rights to a winning project. This option must be selected before the challenge goes live and cannot then be changed. All entrants to your challenge will be asked to agree to this point on entering the challenge. Remember this might put some entrants off, so it may help to offer larger prizes to help compensate for this.

19. Keep in regular contact

​As we have already said it’s vital to keep in touch with participants to ensure that you retain their interest and enthusiasm and that they do come along on the day. Provide regular updates, useful information, hints and tips etc that will keep their interest and ensure your event is top of mind to ensure maximum attendance on the day.

20. Getting sponsors

Getting sponsors for your challenge is also a great idea since it can help with costs, they can provide prizes, evangelists and advisors and help you promote your challenge to a wider audience too. We recommend that you approach companies relevant to the subject and any contacts you have in the relevant industry. You can link sponsors to particular prizes.

21. Marketing your challenge

In order to maximise exposure you need to market your challenge too. Are there people / employees you want to invite? Use the system if you have an email address. You could also contact developer groups to let them know about your challenge, post an announcement to the blog or contact relevant bloggers to let them know what you are up to as well as posting in a sub-reddit group specific to your area.

22. Follow up

Once the event is over post a thank you for all those that took part and message entrants after the event. Submit a blog post to the Hackfest blog explaining how your challenge went and what you got out of it.

Logistics

23. Venue

You should book a venue that is big enough for the number of people you anticipate attending and that’s convenient for them. As a guide a large open plan space often works best whilst having large round tables allow entrants to work more effectively in teams.

24. AV

If you are dealing with a large group you may wish to provide amplified mics for the presentations of briefs and project demos. If you are also providing a projector or a screen let people know in advance what kind of connection it will have (make sure you provide as many options as possible) and what resolution / screen size they will be presenting on. Have staff on hand that can help to quickly and smoothly help people connect and setup for their presentation.

25. Accessibility

As a must you must also ensure your venue is accessible for disabled people and to make sure you let people know of any potential issues before the event.

26. Insurance

Check that your venue has any necessary insurance, covering your entrants and their belongings and remembering they are likely to be bringing expensive equipment with them. As organiser you may need to have your own insurance in place depending on your locale.

27. Registration

Consider registration for the event. Do you have somewhere for people to sign in on the day and will they need ID badges?

28. Security

Having ensured you have insurance for the expensive kit that entrants may have on them consider also that they may want to store it somewhere. Do you have a safe place such as a lockable room or a managed cloakroom that they could use?

29. Overnighting –

If your challenge is running overnight consider what extra facilities you may need. Can people sleep there or if not is there accommodation nearby? Are there showers available? Do you need extra security or have staff there to cover the overnight activity?

30. Internet –

Rock solid internet access is a must for most challenges. Check with your venue that they can provide enough for your needs as your hackathon is likely to depend on this. See  http://hackdaymanifesto.com/ for specific requirements and ensure they are met.

31. Power

Entrants may require power for several devices each. Ensure that your venue can safely provide enough sockets for all of your entrants around their tables. It is always a good idea to have multi plug extensions on standby.

32. Food and drinks

Many challenges provide free food and drinks for their entrants, buffet style allowing entrants to continue working and eat at their leisure often works well. You should let them know in advance know if you are planning to do this or not. If not are there facilities for entrants to buy their own food and drinks?

33. Demos for judging

At the end of your final day ask each team to do a short presentation of their project for the judges and the rest of the entrants to see what they have been working on. Presentations should have a strict time limit to ensure all teams get an equal opportunity. Times generally range from 90 secs to 5 mins. It’s a great idea to film these and post to youtube so entrants can add them to their project entries on Hackfest, remember, successful challenges and projects maybe move into the hall of fame allowing you and your entrants continued exposure, so the more content your entrants put online the better.

34. Allow time for judges

Allow time for Judges to mingle with hackers before demos and get an understanding of the different projects. The hackers can still be working at this point.