My First Ever Hackathon Experience: Spoiler Alert - I Won!
Table of Contents
Participating in my first-ever hackathon was a wild ride.
As someone new to the hackathon scene, I didn’t really know what to expect. But with some determination, teamwork, and a little bit of luck, my team and I managed not just to participate—but actually win!
The Hackathon Kickoff!
The Journey Begins
It was around 6 PM when I got a message saying it was going to snow that night. I quickly packed up my hoodie, grabbed my favorite keyboard, and headed out with my friend. Just like me, my teammates hadn’t done a hackathon before either, and none of us came from a computer science background, so we were already at a bit of a disadvantage.
When I got into the car, my friend casually mentioned, “Let’s just have a good time.” I couldn’t help but respond, “Well, if I’m doing this, I’m aiming to win.” It was one of those moments where you say something without fully knowing how it will turn out. He just laughed, not taking it too seriously.
Forming the Team
When the hackathon kicked off, while the other teams were diving into their projects, we were still trying to figure out what to build. But we had one advantage: we were all grad students. I had some app development experience, so I suggested we use Flutter. The first few hours were spent watching tutorials just to get it installed. My friend and I also procrastinated a bit—we still had homework to do—so it wasn’t an easy start. It’s funny looking back now, but there was definitely some tension in the air.
Building the Project: Echoes of Equality
With my background in app development, I took charge of setting up the architecture and showing everyone what was possible with Flutter. As we started implementing features, we all began to feel a bit more confident.
The Night Struggles
As the night went on, we hit a snag. We needed to use Firebase, which is usually a breeze for me, but that night, it just wasn’t working. I wasted hours on it and couldn’t get it to work. Just when I was about to take a nap out of frustration, my friend managed to pull it off. It was a huge relief. But then, of course, we got greedy and decided to add more and more features.
The Final Push
I could go on and on about the rest of the hackathon, but the bottom line is, we weren’t sure how it would turn out until the very end. But when we presented our app, everyone loved it. They were so impressed, they said they wanted to use it in their daily lives right away. In the end, we won both the Beginner Category and the LGBTQIA+ Category.
Reflections
It’s a bit of a drag that we couldn’t take the app any further, but we received a lot of appreciation from all over the CS department, including the Head of the Department. The organizer even mentioned us in a LinkedIn post! You can check it out here .
If you’re curious to learn more about “Echoes of Equality,” you can check out the project on DevPost .
Gallery
Here’s a collection of images that capture the spirit of the hackathon:
