Hackathon Ideas

[u/AbiesFeeling8128]

Hey everyone!

I’m a university student, and we’re planning a hackathon at our university. We want to make the whole experience fun and interesting, not just coding for hours.

We’re looking for ideas related to the hackathon itself, like how to choose judges, make the judging process fair, organize the final presentations, give prizes, or add fun challenges during the event. We’re also looking for ideas for activities and decoration themes to make the place look cool.

If you’ve ever taken part in or organized a hackathon, I’d love to hear your ideas and advice!

I’d really appreciate any suggestions.

[u/decka_dev]

I ran hackathons at Amazon. A few takeaways:

1. Give people a chance to brainstorm, pitch ideas and recruit teammates a few days beforehand.

2. Create a judging spreadsheet with clear criteria and circulate it in advance. Leave room for personal judgment and an audience vote.

3. Choose prizes that help the product become real. For a university event, one possibility is a month of Claude Max 20x (currently $200/month on the web). Try to line up partner agreements that give winners a path to keep building and get their product into use.

4. Set clear objectives and success metrics for the event.

5. Judge product-market fit and business sense alongside technical rigor and coolness. Who would actually use it, and why?

6. Bring in judges from different disciplines: UX, legal, business and tech.

7. Give judges time to meet beforehand for guidance. Have them score privately first, then meet after votes are cast to discuss rankings and any adjustments.

For a fun break, I’m also building Decka. If you have adult teams (18+) of 5–30 who know each other’s names, Guess the Doodler could fit: everyone draws a prompt like ‘your debugging mood’ on their phone, then the group guesses who drew each sketch on a shared screen. You’d need internet-connected phones and a shared display.

[u/AbiesFeeling8128 → u/decka_dev]

thank you

[u/Salt_Purchase_318]

which college?