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Building Something Amazing: 4 years of Ohio State’s Hackathon Program

Arnab Nandi
February 25, 2017

Building Something Amazing: 4 years of Ohio State’s Hackathon Program

Arnab Nandi, Meris Mandernach

Pictures, videos, reports, papers, and more at:
http://arnab.org/about/ohio-ohio-states-hackathon-program

Presented at http://hackathon-workshop.github.io at CSCW 2017, Portland, Oregon

Arnab Nandi

February 25, 2017
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Transcript

  1. Building Something Amazing:
    4 years of Ohio State’s
    Hackathon Program
    Arnab Nandi / Meris Mandernach
    Computer Science / University Libraries
    The Ohio State University

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  2. Outline
    •  Motivation & Overview
    •  Growth
    •  Planning makes perfect
    •  Incorporating feedback
    •  Towards a holistic hackathon program

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  3. Fostering a Tech Culture
    •  Long-term Investment in our future
    –  Students
    •  Ecosystem
    –  Industry
    –  Research
    –  Education

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  4. “ I built
    something
    amazing”

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  5. HackOHI/O
    •  Annual 24—36 hr hackathon
    •  775+ Students, 1000+ attendees
    •  Industry Sponsors & Mentors
    •  Team-based
    •  (Unenforced) theme
    –  Creativity is more important

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  6. Hackathon Event Format
    Hype
    Events Tutorials
    API
    Demos
    Team
    Formation
    Hackathon 24 hrs of
    hacking
    Judging Showcase Awards
    Mentorship Helpdesk Tech Talks
    Months leading up to event
    Weekend of event

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  7. (video)

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  8. 4 years of growth
    •  Rapid growth each year
    –  Participants
    –  Organizing team (5 to 25+)
    –  Sponsors (2 to 30)
    –  Mentors & Judges
    –  % Women
    –  Non-CSE majors
    100+ 200+ 500+ 775+
    Makeathon

    (hardware)
    Town
    Hacks

    (city)
    Makeathon
    2016
    GiveBackHack
    (social impact)

    Startup
    Weekend
    (entrepreneurship)
    2013 2014 2015 2016
    10+ hype
    events
    8 hype
    events

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  9. Team Structure
    •  Executive Board:
    Fast decisions,
    long-term vision
    –  Student leaders
    from constituent clubs
    –  Staff & Faculty mentors
    –  Faculty Directors
    •  Working Groups
    –  Student Lead + Staff Mentor + Student Team
    –  Weekly meetings
    Executive
    Board
    Sponsorship Mentors Outreach Branding Webteam Logistics Registration Judging

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  10. Planning Timeline
    Amount of time Tasks
    12 months Secure location, recruit team
    6 months Recruit Sponsors, monthly meetings
    3 months Weekly meetings, working groups, event marketing
    2 months Order prizes, shirts, other swag, finalize sponsors
    1 month Finalize food, cut off registration
    2 weeks Dry run of event components
    1 week Swag assembly, list of contacts
    1 day Get some sleep!

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  11. Planning & Tooling
    •  As directors: types of plans
    –  Ramping up to the event: weekly meetings
    –  Day-of: all the moving parts
    •  Lessons
    –  Invest in Communication
    –  Delegate and Trust (allow failure)
    –  Keep team motivated
    Tools that worked Tools that didn’t work

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  12. Event Day Tips
    •  Color-coordinated shirts
    •  Worst Case Planning
    –  Call lists
    –  Drills
    •  Persona-based design
    –  Participant experience
    –  VIP experience
    –  Sponsor experience
    –  Judges Experience

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  13. Planning for Scale: 750+
    •  Design, Rehearse, Iterate
    •  Registration optimization
    •  9s per check in
    •  Food (multiples)
    •  Swag Assembly
    •  Wifi: 2760+ devices
    •  Building upgrade
    •  Getting more help
    •  Engaging with Alumni

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  14. Factoring in feedback
    over the years
    •  Secret sauce: Post-event Surveys
    •  Listen and optimize
    each year

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  15. Post-event Surveys: Quotes
    "The ability to sit down for an extended period of time and just
    work on a project allowed me to accomplish more in 24 hours
    than I have since the start of the school year and it made me
    feel like I actually did something useful for once.”
    “Having an environment where I’m surrounded by
    people just like me – I felt much more motivated
    to learn.”
    “I came in with no computer, no team and no ideas – all
    of those things were eventually taken care of and I left
    with a working Android app. What more could I ask for?!”

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  16. Factoring in feedback:
    Over the years
    •  Post event surveys: Listen & Optimize
    •  Team sizes: no lone wolves, no mega-teams
    •  Judging metrics: improve winner quality
    •  Registration: speed up onboarding
    •  Food: healthier options
    •  Spaces: quiet zones/ layout
    •  Creating a long-term culture: students return as
    sponsors / mentors

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  17. Findings: petri dish for
    collaborative learning
    0"
    500"
    1000"
    1500"
    2000"
    2500"
    3000"
    3500"
    4000"
    4500"
    5000"
    10/3/14"12:48" 10/3/14"17:36" 10/3/14"22:24" 10/4/14"3:12" 10/4/14"8:00" 10/4/14"12:48" 10/4/14"17:36" 10/4/14"22:24" 10/5/14"3:12" 10/5/14"8:00"
    Each%dot%=%source%code%commit%
    Final%push%before%deadline%
    Lines&of&code&over&-me,&5&teams&
    “Hackathons as an Informal Learning Platform”,
    Nandi & Mandernach, ACM SIGCSE 2016
    •  GPA
    •  Gender
    •  Majors
    •  Patterns of work (commit log analysis)
    •  Post-event surveys

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  18. Spinoffs
    -  One format does not fit all
    -  Address unmet needs from existing events
    -  HackOHI/O (5th year, 700+)
    -  MakeOHI/O (3rd year, 150+)
    -  Little i/o: high schools
    -  OHI/O Showcase
    -  Hype Events (8-10)
    -  Industry Meet
    -  Special Events

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  19. Folding into a program
    OHI/O
    Mentoring &
    Seed
    Funding
    Fund & spin
    off related
    events
    Travel
    grants &
    student
    sponsorship
    Year round
    events &
    talks
    HackOHIO:
    Annual
    Hackathon
    A PLATFORM
    FOR INFORMAL LEARNING

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  20. Thank you
    http://hack.osu.edu

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  21. Our Sponsors

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  22. Good food is important

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  23. Showcase: Demonstrations

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  24. Diversity of Thought

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  25. Marketing: Chalk team

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  26. Prizes don’t matter

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  27. Judging

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  28. Hardware Table

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  29. Keynote

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  30. Countdown Clock

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  31. Majors represented: 2016

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  32. HackOHI/O 2016 by the numnbers

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  33. HackOHI/O 2016 by the numbers

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