How to participate and win Hackathons in College

Having won a few hackathons during my college years, I'll be sharing some tips on how you could do the same and get that achievement added to your resume (and maybe even win some cool goodies). 

I am a Computer Science student and had participated in lots of hackathons during my 2nd and 3rd year of college. Hackathons were probably the most fun part of my college which involved actual learning. Back when I was in the 1st year I had no knowledge of any programming language and just like every other student I had several doubts like:

"Should I even participate in the hackathon, I am not even good at coding",
"I have no idea on what I should make at the hackathon", 
"Maybe I shall wait, I'll participate when I am good enough developer/coder" …

One simple solution to all these doubts is - Hackathons are for everyone, even if you have no coding knowledge you can still participate and have a good chance at winning. Hackathons are not about creating good hacks (an alternate term of projects used at hackathons) but about presenting amazing ideas. 

Let's say you have an amazing idea and want to implement it using a website but you don't know how to make a website. You can simply design your website using figma to visualize your idea without coding a single line. I have seen several participants who have won 1st prizes by just making a ppt presentation with amazing ideas. Even if you don't have a good idea, you can still enjoy the hackathon interacting with the guests, your mentors and meet other developers at the event. And the best part about the hackathons - the food.

Here are some sites to checkout cool hackathons around you:

- Major League Hacking (Link)

- Devpost (Link)

- Devfolio (Link)

- Unstop (formerly Dare2Complete) (Link)

- HackerEarth (Link)

- HackClub (Link)

Why participate in Hackathons?

There are several reasons why one should participate in hackathons. A student can learn a lot by participating in hackathons. The hackathons usually are 36-hour long compelling students to compete under time pressure which helps student get better at time management. Participating in hackathons which focuses on themes and tech stacks which you are not familiar will help you learn new technologies, APIs and lot more in short period of time.

I participated in MLH - Local Hack Day 2021 which provides hackers with several challenges to complete every day for a week. I along with my friends made a discord bot, got introduced to APIs like Deepgram, Twilio, developed a chrome extension, worked on Three.js and developed a 3D Music Player throughout the 7 days of the event. These are some of the technologies which I had never touched before the event but gained great deal of knowledge and understanding of how these things work within just a week.

There are several more reasons on why students should participate in hackathon like,

• If you win, you can add the achievement on your resume.
• Goodies and Swags are one of the coolest things ever in hackathons. MLH hackathons provides some really cool prizes and swags if you even the hackathon or get a sponsor prize.

• Can interact with new developers and learn from each other.

How to win at hackathons?

Often times students are worried about what domain one shall focus on to make their project in hackathon. There are various categories for one to choose like - Machine Learning, Web Application, Blockchain. One shall rather focus on the theme of the hackathon and then think of a good idea related to the theme. Now, one might think what exactly is a good idea? The answer to this is by asking yourself several questions.

• "Is my idea unique enough for the hackathon?" You need to make sure the idea isn't too simple having you compete with 10-15 more teams working on the same thing. BE INNOVATIVE with the idea.
• "Will my hack be helpful to the society?" It's not compulsory to create projects which benefits the society but if you do have such an idea it really gives you an edge over other participants. 
• "Is the idea falling under any theme category?" Make sure your idea is compatible with one of the themes mentioned in the hackathon. 

One important trick that you can try it out is to go for sponsor awards. For example.: Many of the hackathons organized by MLH on devpost have sponsor prizes likes you can win Best use of Twilio Award by using Twilio API in your project, there are several such prizes like Deepgram API award, AssemblyAI API, Google cloud award, etc. Winning these prizes that get you cool goodies like game consoles, Raspberry PI, credits to these APIs, google cloud bags, stickers and much more.

Here's a really cool video of a hackathon held at Bangalore to give you an idea of how fun hackathons are why you must participate there

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