What It's Like To Attend A Hackathon

As told by ultimate hacker and tinkerer, Tony Stark

You arrive to the one of the greatest weekends of your life

Everyone is getting pumped to stay up for an ungodly amount of time to build fun projects and learn new things over free food and caffeine. The best kind of party.

You might get intimidated, but all skill levels can do something.

Sometimes you just need a push to get started and see what you can do.

You make new friends as you chat with other hackers. You might form a team.*

*Blueberries recommended, but not required, for team building

You start throwing around ideas. Some are terrible.

Not every project can be a J.A.R.V.I.S.

But sometimes the most genius projects start small

Everyone has to start somewhere.

Motivated, you get to work

J..A.R.V.I.S., cue focus music.

About half way through, you still haven't slept and may be getting a little cranky

Avoid unleashing your inner green giant.

But you keep working

Code a little. Stack Overflow a little. Code a little. Test. Repeat.

Most people won't be laser focused the entire time

A few breaks are recommended. Get up, walk around, hang out with sponsors, collect some free swag. This isn't over though, so grab some coffee on your way back.

After many long hours, your project shows signs of working

And you start to giggle out of either sleep deprivation or pride

When stumped, you might start to stress eat all of the free food.

Believe it or not, shawarma isn't actually a typical hackathon food.

You continue to figure things out

Fake it 'til it builds and runs.

Eventually you build something that works (or at least mostly) and are feeling pretty damn proud

It's probably not perfect. Probably far from it. But it's pretty damn cool. Ship it.

So you take a bow

And then go check out everyone else's hacks. Tweet 'em. Chat with the creators. Give high fives where they are due.

Keep in touch with them. You never know who might want to team up for your next hack.

So, bottom line. Should you attend a hackathon?

If Tony Stark thinks it's a good idea, then what could go wrong?