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Some Motivation to Finish That Hackathon Project You’ve Been Sitting on

by MichelleOctober 13th, 2022

Too Long; Didn't Read

Hackathons provide resources and motivation to finish your project. Online hackathons give you a due date, a prize to shoot for, a sponsor to help you and potential teammates to share the load.

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featured image - Some Motivation to Finish That Hackathon Project You’ve Been Sitting on

How many people here have an idea for a web app, mobile app, game, or even work or life-hack project? ✋

Of course, you do…

I too have a few projects in mind, in design, and some even started (my lonely GitHub with old Unity projects) - but it is a little tougher to build it all out and show people. Getting much further can be a process and a huge investment. Of course, some people finish their side projects, but they probably have some motivation and resources.

For my day job, I help manage hackathons on Devpost where we are hosting a constant stream of motivation and resources for building projects.

Motivation

Due dates are awful, but helpful

Hackathons always have a deadline to submit your project. No one wants a due date, but it is the best medicine to get something done. Online hackathons are usually a month or two long which will give you a few weekends to work on your project. Be on the lookout for hackathons that apply to your interests. Join early and take advantage of all that time.

Award yourself with an actual Award

Hackathons tend to have prizes at the end. If your project met all the requirements and wows the judges, you could get a payday for your project in cash, swag, or the sponsor’s cryptocurrency. Make sure you meet the requirements and make your video demo, description, and repository sparkle. For a step up, check the judging criteria, any past winners, and projects that the sponsor likes to highlight. Devpost has a handy is:winner search.

Resources

Teamwork, so you don’t have to do everything

In a hackathon, you don’t have to be working alone on a project. There are other participants and usually a chat or discussion forum to find team members. This means if you don’t have back-end skills (me, for example), ask around and see who might want to join you. You would have to share the glory and prize, but you might win a friend.

The sponsor is practically begging you to finish your project

Here is a secret that is not so secret. The hackathon sponsor’s goal is usually to get developers to build something with their tool. The sponsor should be posting resources, setting up office hours, discussion boards and overall they are just trying to help you and everyone who signed up build something. Your project is important to them, ask them for help, tell them how your project is going.

Wow… now you have some motivation and resources and you are still reading this 👀. You must be waiting for the list of hackathons on Devpost that I am clearly trying to promote.

We literally always have a hackathon going on here: Devpost.com link with tracking so I can take credit :)

As of October 4th we have these hackathons going:

AWS Health AI Hackathon - Register here