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 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!
> ...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.
When did this happen? I remember judges at hackathons used to be very forgiving about lackluster UIs as long as the idea was cool and at least functional by the presentation time
This has pretty much always been the case. You've never been able to build production-level software in 2 days (not even in the age of AI, no), so it's always been about having a UI with mocked data.
I did a lot of hackathons when I was in school more than 10 years ago and that's how they all were and what every team did.
I did a hackathon many years ago (before LLMs) where I spent a serious amount of effort training a conventional machine learning algorithm and integrating it into a react native app. I had a genuinely impressive team to make this possible given it was 2016.
The winning team bought a bootstrap theme for $35 and made a landing page for a nonexistent app.
I enjoyed "old fashioned" hackathons, which you had 24h to build or play with some technology or API. It has lost its charm (for me)since it moved to be startup-ish like events that you need to pitch a product instead.
I think it will be considered a "blast from the past" at some point, due to the AI era we are getting into.
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.
I don't think you understand the goal of a hackathon. They aren't (or weren't) VC pitch sessions.
You don't run marathons to be usane bolt, you don't go to hackathons to land VC deals.
24 hours of non stop AI usage doesn't sound fun. It sounds hateful and demotivating, you want to discover yourself, and maybe some other people, not what a robot can do.
It's just gatekeeping. It should make them super cool. "Well you have to have good ideas and skills to do anything with AI or it's just slop!" Ok, then it sounds like nothing changed.
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.
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.
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
> 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!
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.
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.
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[ 4.7 ms ] story [ 46.1 ms ] thread"and then this happened, then this happened, then this feature, then this feature"
Wow that's crazy...
I'm excited to see software engineers and teams morph into the next stage of product builders!
> ...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.
We took a problem, designed an internal tool for it, and put some Bootstrap UI on top with some fancy CSS animations.
After wiring up the mock data, it looked convincigly real.
We did win, got congratulated by upper management, and were immediately asked if we could get this into production in a week, or do we need 2?
I did a lot of hackathons when I was in school more than 10 years ago and that's how they all were and what every team did.
The winning team bought a bootstrap theme for $35 and made a landing page for a nonexistent app.
Its a fantastic deal for management if you can find people gullible enough. But a raw deal for the worker bees themselves
I think it will be considered a "blast from the past" at some point, due to the AI era we are getting into.
You don't run marathons to be usane bolt, you don't go to hackathons to land VC deals.
24 hours of non stop AI usage doesn't sound fun. It sounds hateful and demotivating, you want to discover yourself, and maybe some other people, not what a robot can do.
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.
We’re in the age of human hand crafted creativity.
Imperfections of value.
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 think any idea of discipline demonstrations will get whittled away until its more like battlebots or robot wars
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
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!
At least with hardware, people are actually making something and have to use their brains.