Hackathons are an amazing way to get your creative juices flowing and provide you and your team with valuable experience and skills. However, it’s important to give participants a fair chance at winning.
Here are a few tips to help you achieve that:
1. Set clear goals and expectations from the start.
When organizing a hackathon, it’s important to set clear goals and expectations from the start. This will help participants know exactly what they need to do to have a chance of winning. Additionally, ensure there is enough opportunity for participants to try out the hackathon before the start to give them a sense of what’s expected. By providing these opportunities, everyone involved will be more likely to have a great time and produce truly innovative ideas!
Make sure everyone knows what you’re looking for and what they need to bring to the table. This will help you focus the creativity and energy of everyone involved.
2. Use a judging panel that is impartial.
It is important to choose impartial judges. This means that the judges do not have any vested interest in the outcome of the hackathon. An impartial panel of judges can help to ensure that the hackathon is fair and unbiased.
Having a panel of judges who are not involved in the project will help to ensure that the winners are truly the best of the best.
3. Have a clear prize structure.
There are a few important things to keep in mind when designing a hackathon prize structure. The first is to ensure that the prizes are something that participants are interested in and will care about. This means offering something of value that is unique and not easily available elsewhere. Secondly, it’s important to have a clear winner (or winners). This allows everyone who participates to know their best chance of winning and eliminates any confusion or doubt about who should be working the hardest. Finally, it’s important to give participants enough time to compete.
Many hackathons run for 16 or more hours, giving participants plenty of opportunities to work on their projects and keeping the event from feeling too long or drawn out.
Giving out relevant prizes to the project will encourage participants to put their all into it.
4. Keep the hackathon schedule tight.
Keeping the event schedule tight is the most important factor in ensuring a successful hackathon. This will ensure that all participants have the best chance of winning and that the event runs smoothly. By limiting the hours each team has to work, hackathons can keep everyone interested and focused. Additionally, ensuring that all groups have equal access to resources (such as computers and the internet) helps to prevent one team from dominating the competition.
This will help to ensure that everyone has a fair chance to win.
These are just a few hackathon tips that will help you give your participants the best chance of winning. Thank you for your continued support in helping us to create the best hackathons in the UK.
Learn more about winning in hackathons here.
If you’d like to join a hackathon, check out our upcoming one happening here.
