Ask HN: Gender Neutral (or non-brogrammer) hacknight activities | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Gender Neutral (or non-brogrammer) hacknight activities

5 pointsjjling5 comments

I'm involved in helping run a hacknight. In the past the hacknight has been successful but the activities have included energy drink chugging, halo tournaments, bb-gun shooting and things like that. It's been a lot of fun, but now that I am helping to plan it, I'd really like to introduce some activities and games that appeal to everyone. Basically just want everyone to feel involved/included/interested. Any suggestions?

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Trivia is a great activity. I like it when you have a ton of mini-rounds of 2-3 questions under some category- you can leave plenty of time in-between questions so people can come up with an answer and then still have time to chat and get to know each other. For your goal specifically, I would just try to avoid topics that are kinda gendered and stick to stuff that isn't. Biology, history, music, pop culture, literature are all great topics. Throw in some oddball questions, and keep a really broad scope so you can learn which of your new teammates is really into Bill Murray and knows what language he learned, what instrument he learned to play and what art form he practiced in Groundhog Day, or what is the common name for Amorphophallus titanum, the Sumatran flower that is the largest flower in the world and arguably the smelliest.

Trivia is cool because it gets your brain going in a lot of different directions in a short period of time, it can spur some ideas for the rest of your hacking. It is also competitive while still being fun, and unlike a tournament, you get to play the whole time whether you're in first place or last. If you have a Final Jeopardy style final question, you can totally come up from behind and win if you're the only team that knows it, so it's never pointless to keep going. Giving out prizes for various special rounds is great for that too, like a round where you have to identify songs based on a 15 second clip, or brands or celebrities based on a picture. Think about how you want teams to form, and what size works best for your group.

Rock on with being mindful about the culture you're creating. Lots of devs love competition and violence like that, and lots of devs don't.

I would say each of those are easily transformable to be attractive for females while still remaining relevant for males - perhaps beer pong, Mario Kart, and trivia?

Beer pong may alienate a lot of other people. My office plays a lot of Mario Kart and trivia/card games and those both seem to interest everyone.

Your first step is to figure out what elements exclude people. Personally, I think your current activities have strong elements of competition & machismo. There's also a large skill-based component to some of them (it's hard for someone new to computer games to have fun while joining a bunch of experienced gamers playing Halo). So your new activities should favour things that prioritise other elements: non-competitive, accessible to beginners, and not so bro-like. Here's some concrete suggestions:

- Handicrafts. Get some supplies that let people make something. Sculpey, for instance, sell kits that come with clay & instructions (http://www.sculpey.com/product_category/kids-kits/). Creative types can freestyle it; beginners can follow the instructions. Plus everyone gets something they can take home or keep on their desk afterwards as a memento. It doesn't have to be clay - there's many other options like pipe cleaners & fuzzballs, felt cut-outs, picture beads, and origami.

- Learn a skill. If you've got a budget you can hire an outside expert, but you can probably find someone inside the company with a good party trick. Get a magician to teach some basic sleight-of-hand, a juggler to teach juggling, or an entertainer to teach some balloon animals. There's also cookery, improv, flower arranging, astronomy, and many more.

- Play with toys. Find some unusual/expensive items that your attendees can play with throughout the night. An Oculus Rift, a 3D printer, a unicycle, an Apple watch, Google Glass, a photo booth, a double-necked guitar, a Segway, a candyfloss machine, etc.

- Engineering games. Given 1 roll of stickytape and unlimited straws, what's the tallest tower you can build? Given half a pack of blu-tack and unlimited paperclips, what's the widest gap you can span? Given 10 sheets of cardboard & a craft knife, how many coke cans can your structure support?

- Movie night. If you've got a projector, a stereo, and some comfy chairs in your office you're in for a treat.

Rock Band. Watching nerdy TV shows/movies with strong female characters (firefly, DS9, Buffy the Vampire Slayer).

Though the best way is probably to find female attendees and ask them what they want, or invite them to be part of the planning and to choose activities.

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