This summer, I participated in the YYC Hacks hackathon that took place at Platform Calgary, and it was one of the most fun events I’ve ever participated in. I learned a lot from this event, so here are the top three things I learned!
- Working with people you have never met before
I got lucky with my team at the hackathon. All of us, except for Nurgul (a fellow Arcurve intern) and I, had never met each other before. Despite this, we were surprisingly able to all work together towards completing the project, with no disagreements! We all had our skills that contributed to the project in a meaningful way, and everyone contributed something to the final version, and that was amazing.
- Pressure is a great tool for getting stuff DONE
I personally loved the time crunch that we were in at the hackathon. It allowed me to just arrive at the hackathon, put in my earbuds, hit shuffle, and then build a bunch of different web pages in no time flat. The pressure worked so well that I’m actually considering ways to implement it into my daily life. It’ll probably end up just being due dates all over the place for everything, but hopefully it’ll help me get stuff done faster.
- The entire structure of a full stack application
Since I worked so closely with the other developers on our team, and I was involved in every step of the planning, I was able to learn all about the different technologies required to produce a full stack application. Since I was also working on a similar application at Arcurve, it further solidified my learning of how these applications work, and I think I’m ready to try and make one myself!
All in all, this hackathon was a great learning experience! With all the people I met and all the things I learned, winning third place was just the cherry on top for my first hackathon. If you’re even remotely interested in software development, I highly recommend taking part in hackathons. It’s not about winning, it’s about the people, and learning new technologies and techniques.
