I am hosting a month long hackathon starting next week and am looking for your suggestions on what I can do to make it an AMAZING experience for hackers.<p>Here are some questions I have:
- What makes a hackathon engaging?
- What type of support would you look for as a hacker?<p>Any advice is appreciated!
I used to run hackathons when I was a community manager for local developers group. Apart from being technical and challenging a successful hackathon will present a lot of opportunities for networking between the participants and help them make connections. Not only within a team but also cross-team and amongst the whole participants.
If the people participating don't know each other yet, setup a team matching / speed-dating-style activity where people can introduce themselves, and brainstorm and share ideas.<p>Invite a few guest speakers and possibly organize some events (eg: yoga, snack time, improv exercises, video game break) to break up the monotony of everyone just staring at their screens.<p>Setup a support staff / helpdesk queue with mentors (either more senior students or staff, or possibly volunteers from industry) to help out teams that get stuck.<p>And make it easy to share contact info (eg: QR code badges which you can use to share email or chat information) for networking purposes.