8 Hackathons and 8 Reflections

Recently at System Hacks 2019 at Simon Fraser University, I was asked "Why do you attend hackathons"? This got me thinking and I wanted to look back at the hackathons I've attended.

nwHacks 2015 📍 The University of British Columbia 🕐 January

I volunteered for my first hackathon because I was intimidated to join. I didn't have anyone to go with and I was afraid that I would be a setback to a team that I joined. When I got to the event, I was amazed at how many people there. When I was not busy helping out with the hackathon, I would ask different groups what they were working on and how they were doing it. I thought events like this were really cool and I knew in the future that I would want to try attending a hackathon.

LumoHacks 2017 📍 Simon Fraser University 🕐 February

My first hackathon signing up as a hacker! My friend and I were going to make a smart plant app that would monitor the moisture in the soil and alert you on your phone when you needed to water your plant. Our mom's both gardened so we thought that this would be a really neat project for both of them. We ended up leaving around midnight because we got stuck and weren't feeling it. I felt that I needed to learn some more programming skills to be able to make a project in a day.

nwHacks 2018 📍 The University of British Columbia 🕐 January

Returning to nwHacks after three years. My friend had the idea to create an app that would help assist his SO with dyslexia. I've made projects in the past, but I've never made one for a specific person other than myself. This was the first time I thought to myself that maybe I could make something that others would find useful.

My friend, team and I somehow managed to win the hackathon. In the first picture, you can see my shock and disbelief. One of my teammates actually abandoned the closing ceremony because he said "we aren't going to win" and flew back to California. Don't worry, we called them up and gave them their share of the prize money. I realized that soft skills are just as important as technical skills. Being able to convey your thoughts and reasoning to someone is a valuable skill. When the judges came around to look at everyone else's projects, my friend was the one to pitch our solution. Since the problem was one that he had myself, he he was able to explain it with great detail and the reasoning behind it. Taking the W gave myself a huge confidence boost.

System Hacks 2018 📍 Simon Fraser University 🕐 Feburary

I learned that I needed a haircut and that two redbulls and coffees was too much.

LumoHacks 2018 📍 Simon Fraser University 🕐 September

I lied, I actually didn't go to LumoHacks 2018 because it was on the same weekend as Hack the North, but I think helping out someone for a hackathon counts, right? One day, I received an unexpected email in my inbox asking about hackathon advice. This person went through the trouble of trying to contact me. My Youtube video for the Microsoft Student Partner application didn't have any contact information in the description. It only had a short clip showing my GitHub account. So this person searched up my GitHub account which has a link to my website which contains my email. I was really touched that someone would take the time to write an email asking for advice, not knowing whether or not the recipient would even respond. This person also reminded me of myself when I first joined my first hackathon. They even mention that "I really appreciate the honesty of your website (how you mentioned you were too intimidated to join a Hackathon)". I responded with some advice that I wished I would have gotten. Looking back, this kind of inspired me to try to help people in one of the next hackathons that I joined. I got reject for the Microsoft Student Partner position, so then I applied for being a GitHub Campus Expert. Both are ambassador positions for your school campus where you help sponsor and help form technical communities. Being a GitHub Campus Expert would be my way in nwHacks 2019 and trying to help other hackers out.

Hack the North 2018 📍 The University of Waterloo 🕐 September

Hack the North, Canada's largest hackathon. I got accepted! I got to go across Canada from Vancouver to Toronto. This was my first time visiting any other province in Canada and first plane ride in over a decade. At the hackathon, I met someone who interned at one of those companies who everyone says is their dream, top of Mount Everest or "endgame". Before meeting this person, I thought that everyone who worked at one of these companies had everything "solved" in their lives. I got a chance to pick their brain around 4 am after a long day of hacking. I realized that this person was the same as everyone else and had the same life problems. My thoughts of "once I reach my dream job than I will ..." suddenly didn't even make sense any more. I also met a lot of people from Waterloo that have done internships in Seattle, California and New York. I really fantasize about the idea of being really good at your profession that you get the opportunity of traveling somewhere for a good chunk of time. This is goal that I really want to achieve.

nwHacks 2019 📍 The University of British Columbia 🕐 Janurary

I applied to nwHacks again for the third time! I wanted to try something different this time and so I applied to be a mentor and sponsor. I helped nwHacks get GitHub as a sponsor and we would be giving them a bunch of GitHub swag and a workshop that I would be presenting. The workshop would be an Intro to Git that would be 30 minutes long. My workshop would include some live coding in resolving merge conflicts and showing basic Git flow with GitHub. The weekend of the hackathon eventually came and it was time to present my workshop.

Public speaking is a big fear of mine, and so I practiced presenting a lot so that I hopefully wouldn't mess up. Well, I messed up the section about merge conflicts while doing the live coding and had to skip that part of the presentation. After the presentation, I apologized to a nwHacks organizer because I was really disappointed in myself. I hated myself for a little while because one of my worst fears came true. But I soon realized, even after that happened it wasn't really that bad. I was able to somewhat concur my fear of public speaking and hopefully help out some new hackers who attended my Git workshop.

SystemHacks 2019 📍 Simon Fraser University 🕐 February

Back at it again with System Hacks, but this time I'm a mentor and judge! I missed being a hacker and I had an itch to start a project after mentoring for the last two hackathons that I've joined. I've recently picked up two long term projects that I'm hoping will fill the void until the next hackathon I attend.

If you've made it this far, thanks for the read! If you have any questions or want to know more about any of my experiences, don't be afraid to ask!