Makes perfect sense, all things considered. I've only joined a handful of hackathons. My best experience was in Amsterdam in like 2022, where half our team went to sleep and me and another guy spent the entire night locked up in a venue with 200 other people building stuff and bashing our heads against the table, looking for optimizations, hacks, half-assed solutions to near-impossible problems. In recent years, I've lost interest: And at this point I don't think I'll ever join another one: I recently got an email about one that finished and the winner was a guy who created something like an "AI team of engineers". What he presented was 20 markdown skills.md bs files. I mean seriously, being literate is enough to get you the gold medal? As a friend of mine likes to say, "you hit rock bottom and started drilling into the rock now".
At least with hardware, people are actually making something and have to use their brains.
show comments
Silamoth
I’m all for hardware hackathons. But I think there’s still a place for software hackathons: Just don’t use LLMs. Generating an entire application with LLMs kinda defeats the point of a hackathon to begin with. It’s supposed to be about showing you can make something in a short time frame. It’s supposed to be about exploring and learning new areas with no long-term commitment. It’s supposed to let you develop your skills and build your portfolio; the time constraint forces you to actually finish something.
I can’t imagine going to a hackathon just to not write any code and outsource it all to an LLM. I wonder if any hackathons ban LLMs?
le-mark
Hackathons turned into “nice ui with mock data”-athons. Whoever got the best ui person on their team won. I benefitted from this a few times!
show comments
kristopolous
I'm ok with them. It's all the stuff I'm weak on: pitching, making eye-contact, telling convincing stories, and engaging audience. I suck at this.
Making people feel my pain or communicating effectively quickly I'm total garbage at.
Hackathons are now only this. They have turned into an exercise that highlights my core weaknesses and that's why 25 years into my career I'm going to them almost every weekend.
This is the stuff I really need to get better at and finally, I am. Slowly but also, provably.
Also, this problem is unique: I call it "the trailhead". You get deep into the problem (the trail) and forget what it looked like at the trailhead and thus fail to compel the product because you spend your time on the wrong level of details and the wrong aspects.
That's why you can pitch something not yours better then your own stuff.
show comments
zem
as someone who got into linux and open source in the early 90s I will never stop being sad that "hackathon" morphed into a competitive activity, rather than "let's all get together and build some free software collaboratively". I guess the latter tends to get called a "dev sprint" these days, but it's always the first thing I think of when I hear "hackathon"
show comments
armchairhacker
The author notes that vibecoding has entirely replaced coding in hackathons (where speed is essential, bugs are tolerated, and only the demo is judged). I agree.
But then says this means software is “solved” so only hardware hackathons matter. Why?
If anything, I think software hackathons have become more useful, because ideas have become more useful. Even if ideas are cheap, not everyone has 24-72 hours for a prototype, in a creativity-inducing space that may inspire better details.
And software isn’t solved: some ideas still require low-level knowledge and skill to translate into prototypes, especially if the hackathon judges require some functionality.
Whether your purpose of a hackathon is:
- Make a prototype, then if it seems useful afterwards rewrite it into a full product
- Make a prototype that seems useful to attract investors (whether you start a company that may not launch or apply to a company that wants your creativity)
- As an organizer, find ideas related to your company
- Have fun, enjoy free food and good company
show comments
pelagicAustral
The conference scene is not doing that much better either.
I begrudgingly went to one a few months ago and I was absolutely shocked, it was a two-day one, not even going to mention the programming language because at this point it probably doesn't matter, since only about 20% (tops) of the talks/presentations were strictly about programming.
A small assemble of self-defined industry champions took the floor once after the other to preach about their holiness and the outstanding work they have done for the community in areas that bordered software engineering as much as Iceland limits the Indian Ocean.
It was lecture after lecture, it was lifestyle, it was virtue-signaling, it was everything but programming. There was a single ham-fisted workshop that did not even had enough time to build on the basics of what was trying to accomplish, and there was a guy who I had as a personal hero of sorts that went in there to talk about some internal package manager drama.
NEXT! never again. It's all rotten to the core.
croshan
Nearly all my hackathon projects were hardware, back in college.
A couple examples (both from HackPrinceton, which had the best EE labs):
There's something nice about holding your work in your hands. Tangible work is also both easy to explain, and hard to fake. So going the hardware route felt fun, fulfilling, and scored well.
Good times.
ElijahLynn
I was thinking about this the other day. Now that software is within reach of most idea makers, it opens the door for a much deeper level of tinkering. With very affordable, if not slow, 3d printers, and an abundance of hardware interfaces, I think we are going to see some really great weekend projects that will turn into beautiful, "where has this been until now" utility for the world!
I'm excited to see software engineers and teams morph into the next stage of product builders!
show comments
killerstorm
Hmm, looks like by "hardware hackathons" he really means "making software for more resource-constrained platforms". Nothing wrong with that, but I don't think that's a right name for it. Also adding some soldering to it won't make much difference.
When my daughter was 4 y.o. she went to robotics classes where they assembled a small LEGO robot and made software for it using environment like Scratch. That's a good activity, but my point is that doing some assembly doesn't put the task into entirely different category of difficulty
show comments
tracker1
I was a corporate representative of a sponsor of a major hackathon a bit over a decade ago... two of the presentations that stood out to me was one with Google Glasses that allowed the presenter to control the presentation, see the notes slides on his view, while the presentation showed a different deck/slide, using gestures to switch for either.
The other presentation that stuck out, iirc, became leet codes.
Footprint0521
This makes me so happy, because I have totally made my new side project lately lol
I just recently turned an old guitar hero controller into a fully functioning midi controller and it took so a little time. It actually makes me laugh
I swear the bar with AI now is just the craziest things that you can think of
show comments
smackeyacky
Last hackathon I went to our team was beaten by a group that produced a PowerPoint presentation. I have no interest in doing that any more
show comments
jasoneckert
The height of hackathons was back in the early to mid 2010s in my opinion. That was the height of the indie game scene and mobile app goldrush - and there were plenty of sponsors willing to contribute real $$, prizes, and swag - all of which were necessary to build the excitement around the event.
I ran a plethora of these events at my college for developer and game developer students (Great Canadian Appathon, Global Game Jam, and numerous Microsoft-centric hackathons for WinPhone7 and Win10). The sponsorship, prizes, catering (massive food budget!), and swag was insane. All the college really contributed was the space and staff to run the 48-hour weekend events, caffeinated soap for the washrooms, and the occasional medical attention (we had a few NOS-induced nosebleeds the year Coca-Cola was one of the sponsors).
But what was developed during these intense hackathons was nothing short of spectacular, and the collaborative skill-building was massive. I still hear from former students who attended them during that time that they consider them as one of the best experiences of their lives.
NDlurker
I like the fax machine idea. Reminds me of an idea I had. Get some receipt printers for my friends and we can print to each other's printers to send text messages
show comments
ashm1104
I second that, hardware hackathons were and will be the game changers, software hackathon is a done thing, shouldn't be taken much seriously tbh...
teddyh
You get what you incentivize. Just go back to the roots and remove any and all judging and awards. The incentive should be to get things done in a project, not to “win” a hackathon.
revlsas
The implementation that can be achieved at a hackathon is trivial at this point
Enterprise is just fishing for other people's ideas that they can use as their own
If you truly had a novel and useful idea, someone else can just steal it and recreate it themselves
amelius
How does that work if a digikey order takes 1-2 days, and ordering a PCB even longer?
show comments
feverzsj
Just ban internet connection.
show comments
hacker_88
Prompt-a-ton
show comments
sameersri2004
The moment Opus 4.6 came into existence, the RIP was software with them and unfortunately now making software is ready. Even though thinking a particular solution in a hackathon still makes sense, when it comes to making real physical solutions now that makes no sense. That's why I get our day of hackathons like in the future.
show comments
flawn
Owe a lot to them.
If you have kiddos in Germany: jugendhackt.org
ex-aws-dude
Listening to someone tell you about their AI-coded project is like listening to someone tell you a dream they had last night
"and then this happened, then this happened, then this feature, then this feature"
Wow that's crazy...
show comments
d_tr
> As software subtends to becoming more and more "solved" ...
Really? Maybe if we do not care about robustness, elegance, coherence, consistency and generally anything beyond making a buck and leaving more waste behind... sure!
show comments
sublinear
> We wired a Raspberry Pi...
> ...the focus of hackathons has completely shifted away from typing code...
> ...iterating on intricacies of implementation with radical refactors has become a trivial task...
The irony is unreal. Where's the hardware?
Since the advent of SBCs and microcontroller kits, software devs have felt the same way about hardware being trivial. Yet, a hardware engineer still makes a massive difference in the outcome of the project.
show comments
kangaroozach
Everyday feels like a hackathon now!
yieldcrv
AI can one-shot hardware interfacing too
I think any idea of discipline demonstrations will get whittled away until its more like battlebots or robot wars
deadbabe
On the contrary, I think software hackathons could really hit a golden age where we see how far people can push the limits of what we ever thought possible within 24 hours or a weekend through the use of AI. Less “pretty UI with mock data” and more fully working products ready for the consumer market.
show comments
pdntspa
Can we kill the hackathon please? Yes I totally want to get nerd-sniped for some of my precious off time for some trivial reward. NOT
Its a fantastic deal for management if you can find people gullible enough. But a raw deal for the worker bees themselves
show comments
Dig1t
[flagged]
brador
AI can make hardware. It can also generate the ideas for your next hardware hackathon. Human intelligence is no longer required.
We’re in the age of human hand crafted creativity.
Makes perfect sense, all things considered. I've only joined a handful of hackathons. My best experience was in Amsterdam in like 2022, where half our team went to sleep and me and another guy spent the entire night locked up in a venue with 200 other people building stuff and bashing our heads against the table, looking for optimizations, hacks, half-assed solutions to near-impossible problems. In recent years, I've lost interest: And at this point I don't think I'll ever join another one: I recently got an email about one that finished and the winner was a guy who created something like an "AI team of engineers". What he presented was 20 markdown skills.md bs files. I mean seriously, being literate is enough to get you the gold medal? As a friend of mine likes to say, "you hit rock bottom and started drilling into the rock now".
At least with hardware, people are actually making something and have to use their brains.
I’m all for hardware hackathons. But I think there’s still a place for software hackathons: Just don’t use LLMs. Generating an entire application with LLMs kinda defeats the point of a hackathon to begin with. It’s supposed to be about showing you can make something in a short time frame. It’s supposed to be about exploring and learning new areas with no long-term commitment. It’s supposed to let you develop your skills and build your portfolio; the time constraint forces you to actually finish something.
I can’t imagine going to a hackathon just to not write any code and outsource it all to an LLM. I wonder if any hackathons ban LLMs?
Hackathons turned into “nice ui with mock data”-athons. Whoever got the best ui person on their team won. I benefitted from this a few times!
I'm ok with them. It's all the stuff I'm weak on: pitching, making eye-contact, telling convincing stories, and engaging audience. I suck at this.
Making people feel my pain or communicating effectively quickly I'm total garbage at.
Hackathons are now only this. They have turned into an exercise that highlights my core weaknesses and that's why 25 years into my career I'm going to them almost every weekend.
This is the stuff I really need to get better at and finally, I am. Slowly but also, provably.
Also, this problem is unique: I call it "the trailhead". You get deep into the problem (the trail) and forget what it looked like at the trailhead and thus fail to compel the product because you spend your time on the wrong level of details and the wrong aspects.
That's why you can pitch something not yours better then your own stuff.
as someone who got into linux and open source in the early 90s I will never stop being sad that "hackathon" morphed into a competitive activity, rather than "let's all get together and build some free software collaboratively". I guess the latter tends to get called a "dev sprint" these days, but it's always the first thing I think of when I hear "hackathon"
The author notes that vibecoding has entirely replaced coding in hackathons (where speed is essential, bugs are tolerated, and only the demo is judged). I agree.
But then says this means software is “solved” so only hardware hackathons matter. Why?
If anything, I think software hackathons have become more useful, because ideas have become more useful. Even if ideas are cheap, not everyone has 24-72 hours for a prototype, in a creativity-inducing space that may inspire better details.
And software isn’t solved: some ideas still require low-level knowledge and skill to translate into prototypes, especially if the hackathon judges require some functionality.
Whether your purpose of a hackathon is:
- Make a prototype, then if it seems useful afterwards rewrite it into a full product
- Make a prototype that seems useful to attract investors (whether you start a company that may not launch or apply to a company that wants your creativity)
- As an organizer, find ideas related to your company
- Have fun, enjoy free food and good company
The conference scene is not doing that much better either.
I begrudgingly went to one a few months ago and I was absolutely shocked, it was a two-day one, not even going to mention the programming language because at this point it probably doesn't matter, since only about 20% (tops) of the talks/presentations were strictly about programming.
A small assemble of self-defined industry champions took the floor once after the other to preach about their holiness and the outstanding work they have done for the community in areas that bordered software engineering as much as Iceland limits the Indian Ocean.
It was lecture after lecture, it was lifestyle, it was virtue-signaling, it was everything but programming. There was a single ham-fisted workshop that did not even had enough time to build on the basics of what was trying to accomplish, and there was a guy who I had as a personal hero of sorts that went in there to talk about some internal package manager drama.
NEXT! never again. It's all rotten to the core.
Nearly all my hackathon projects were hardware, back in college.
A couple examples (both from HackPrinceton, which had the best EE labs):
* https://blog.cyrusroshan.com/post/electronic-banjo (crowd favorite)
* https://blog.cyrusroshan.com/post/spin-to-win (a "moonshot" idea)
There's something nice about holding your work in your hands. Tangible work is also both easy to explain, and hard to fake. So going the hardware route felt fun, fulfilling, and scored well.
Good times.
I was thinking about this the other day. Now that software is within reach of most idea makers, it opens the door for a much deeper level of tinkering. With very affordable, if not slow, 3d printers, and an abundance of hardware interfaces, I think we are going to see some really great weekend projects that will turn into beautiful, "where has this been until now" utility for the world!
I'm excited to see software engineers and teams morph into the next stage of product builders!
Hmm, looks like by "hardware hackathons" he really means "making software for more resource-constrained platforms". Nothing wrong with that, but I don't think that's a right name for it. Also adding some soldering to it won't make much difference.
When my daughter was 4 y.o. she went to robotics classes where they assembled a small LEGO robot and made software for it using environment like Scratch. That's a good activity, but my point is that doing some assembly doesn't put the task into entirely different category of difficulty
I was a corporate representative of a sponsor of a major hackathon a bit over a decade ago... two of the presentations that stood out to me was one with Google Glasses that allowed the presenter to control the presentation, see the notes slides on his view, while the presentation showed a different deck/slide, using gestures to switch for either.
The other presentation that stuck out, iirc, became leet codes.
This makes me so happy, because I have totally made my new side project lately lol
I just recently turned an old guitar hero controller into a fully functioning midi controller and it took so a little time. It actually makes me laugh
I swear the bar with AI now is just the craziest things that you can think of
Last hackathon I went to our team was beaten by a group that produced a PowerPoint presentation. I have no interest in doing that any more
The height of hackathons was back in the early to mid 2010s in my opinion. That was the height of the indie game scene and mobile app goldrush - and there were plenty of sponsors willing to contribute real $$, prizes, and swag - all of which were necessary to build the excitement around the event.
I ran a plethora of these events at my college for developer and game developer students (Great Canadian Appathon, Global Game Jam, and numerous Microsoft-centric hackathons for WinPhone7 and Win10). The sponsorship, prizes, catering (massive food budget!), and swag was insane. All the college really contributed was the space and staff to run the 48-hour weekend events, caffeinated soap for the washrooms, and the occasional medical attention (we had a few NOS-induced nosebleeds the year Coca-Cola was one of the sponsors).
But what was developed during these intense hackathons was nothing short of spectacular, and the collaborative skill-building was massive. I still hear from former students who attended them during that time that they consider them as one of the best experiences of their lives.
I like the fax machine idea. Reminds me of an idea I had. Get some receipt printers for my friends and we can print to each other's printers to send text messages
I second that, hardware hackathons were and will be the game changers, software hackathon is a done thing, shouldn't be taken much seriously tbh...
You get what you incentivize. Just go back to the roots and remove any and all judging and awards. The incentive should be to get things done in a project, not to “win” a hackathon.
The implementation that can be achieved at a hackathon is trivial at this point
Enterprise is just fishing for other people's ideas that they can use as their own
If you truly had a novel and useful idea, someone else can just steal it and recreate it themselves
How does that work if a digikey order takes 1-2 days, and ordering a PCB even longer?
Just ban internet connection.
Prompt-a-ton
The moment Opus 4.6 came into existence, the RIP was software with them and unfortunately now making software is ready. Even though thinking a particular solution in a hackathon still makes sense, when it comes to making real physical solutions now that makes no sense. That's why I get our day of hackathons like in the future.
Owe a lot to them.
If you have kiddos in Germany: jugendhackt.org
Listening to someone tell you about their AI-coded project is like listening to someone tell you a dream they had last night
"and then this happened, then this happened, then this feature, then this feature"
Wow that's crazy...
> As software subtends to becoming more and more "solved" ...
Really? Maybe if we do not care about robustness, elegance, coherence, consistency and generally anything beyond making a buck and leaving more waste behind... sure!
> We wired a Raspberry Pi...
> ...the focus of hackathons has completely shifted away from typing code...
> ...iterating on intricacies of implementation with radical refactors has become a trivial task...
The irony is unreal. Where's the hardware?
Since the advent of SBCs and microcontroller kits, software devs have felt the same way about hardware being trivial. Yet, a hardware engineer still makes a massive difference in the outcome of the project.
Everyday feels like a hackathon now!
AI can one-shot hardware interfacing too
I think any idea of discipline demonstrations will get whittled away until its more like battlebots or robot wars
On the contrary, I think software hackathons could really hit a golden age where we see how far people can push the limits of what we ever thought possible within 24 hours or a weekend through the use of AI. Less “pretty UI with mock data” and more fully working products ready for the consumer market.
Can we kill the hackathon please? Yes I totally want to get nerd-sniped for some of my precious off time for some trivial reward. NOT
Its a fantastic deal for management if you can find people gullible enough. But a raw deal for the worker bees themselves
[flagged]
AI can make hardware. It can also generate the ideas for your next hardware hackathon. Human intelligence is no longer required.
We’re in the age of human hand crafted creativity.
Imperfections of value.