How To Judge a Hackathon – Finding the Chosen One | Hacker News Reader

How To Judge a Hackathon – Finding the Chosen One

mlh.io

23 pointsthelonelygod8 comments

Having experienced all three types of judging formats as a hacker, I honestly enjoyed the Demo-athon types the best.

The most exciting part of a hackathon is seeing what other hackers have made and that's almost impossible when you're stuck at your table demoing. Especially if you're a solo hacker or a key member of the team.

The expo-style format may be the most scalable, but there's also a ton of room for improvement. I distinctly remember a hackathon (MHacks maybe?) where none of the sponsor judges came to see my app. Another time I overheard judges prioritized tables that had the most twitter mentions, turning the expo into a social network popularity contest of sorts.

Its exciting to see hackathons trying to solve the demo problem, and I'm really glad someone put together a guide, but I think the ideal judging format has yet to be found.

From my perspective, the "conversation > pitch" line is key. I love walking around, talking to people, and watching in awe as they excitedly demo their hacks. But it's pretty irritating when everyone tries to sell eachother their apps.

For that reason, I’m a fan of the science fair-style expo. It has less incentive for self-aggrandizement compared to onstage presentations. Hackers can be more genuine/playful without that single, high-tension Demo-athon pitch.

But then again, I have no idea how difficult science fair-style events are to coordinate. I’ve never organized a hackathon.

The problem with exhibition style is that the judges and the participants end up completely exhausted because they're presenting/pitching a few hundred times at the larger events... and some people just can't take a hint that it's time to move on to the next table or something like that. At least that's what I've experienced.

And from a judging perspective it's important that judges give equal consideration to all the ranges of numbers... statistics can be a cruel mistress as youtubers like CPG Grey frequently point out.

I really like the crowd judging idea of letting hackers do the judging. Science fair style seems to be the way to do it and it solves the problem of getting people to actually leave their booths.

Now if only we could force all hackathon judges to read this...

emphasis on learning over profit for sure !

I'm generally opposed to the co-opting of hackathons for startup prototyping. Startup Weekend and StartupBus and similar events have their place, but I wouldn't call it a hackathon.

Judging is one of the places that the focus of startup prototyping/learning gets confused. Some judges don't really care about the technical aspect of your project. Boilermake stands out as a great hackathon that had judges emphasize the business nature of our projects.

I've had great experiences at events only to have them ruined by being asked how does my project make money. I dislike that question, especially when I spent a weekend doing something for the sake of making it instead working on a pretend pitch.

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