-
Notifications
You must be signed in to change notification settings - Fork 1
Requirements
This page discusses typical software and hardware requirements to run a hackathon.
Pretty much any software that helps you to document and track problem statements ("challenges") and solutions ("pitches") is bonafide. We have run some great events using a wiki (e.g. DokuWiki), a project board (e.g. WeKan), even just some text files in a code repository (e.g. on GitHub).
If you find yourself running regular events, you may want to streamline some of the setup, maybe even offload some of the organizer duties to community champions, tweak the branding and onboarding experience. That's why we make our own software: dribdat :) We are of course not the only platform out there, and we keep tabs of our favorites here.
A project board is only the tip of the iceberg: you may want to connect a range of other software, depending on your needes. Our typical stack for running a hybrid event is dribdat connected to Jitsi or Workadventure for teambuilding and conferencing, Mattermost or Slack for instant messaging, to Discourse or Disqus for longer discussions and voting, to Auth0 for managing users, etc. Design, Prototyping, DevOps, Data Science tools can also be plugged in to help bootstrap your teams and make the most of the time limits. Feel free to contact the maintainers for advice in this area.
Since hackathons are usually bring-your-own-device affairs (though we do recommend bringing a couple of spare laptops in case of IT meltdowns..), we will focus on the network requirements here.
First of all, ask yourself if you really need a network. Stories have been told of mythical, über-productive hackatons in forests and alpine heights where people freed themselves of Internet connectivity and other mortal troubles to dedicate their whole attention and CPU power to the task at hand.. Of course, these may just be legends 🦄
Typically participants at a hackathon expect strong bandwidth, may even join an event in hopes of being to tap into the wealth of data on the Internet that their home connections deprive them of. You should anticipate at least 1 Mbps as a rule-of-thumb per participant, so for an event of about 100 people you should have a 100 Mbps connection - symmetrical, of course. If you can afford double or triple the bandwidth - great! - as many people have two or three devices on them. With a 1 Gbps or higher up/down connection you should be ready to party 🎉
Make sure to test your uplink, as the "promised" and "real world" transfer rates always differ by a margin. Run a Speed Test a couple of times in the middle of a busy day to get your facts straight. Besides bandwidth, make sure your WiFi can handle the extra capacity of a typically denser-than-usual network utilization. Many APs are limited to 200 connections, and your network also needs to assign enough IP addresses. Hackathons are a terrific way to be embarassed by your locale's IT limitations - though usually they are attended to by friendly, helpful people who can help you to fix things for everyone.
Speaking of everyone, if your hackathon is at a public venue like a café or school, you should try to make sure that your usage will not seriously degrade the experience for other visitors. In all cases asking your participants to agree to some guidelines, like limiting large downloads, not using streaming services too intensively, is very recommended. You may wish to bundle this with legal or moral conditions, to ask your participants to not engage in offensive or illegal activities during the event.
When working on remote locations, or locations where the network is seriously capped (mythical offline events as mentioned above notwithstanding), we suggest bringing an LTS mobile router at least as a backup connection. You can sometimes rent them cheap for a weekend from your telecom provider, which works well along with an unlimited-data-plan SIM card. If you are doing this, or running your own network then we advise you to use a decent firewall, de-isolate devices only on request, and proactively monitor network utilization.
Some tech teams take pride in providing network logistics for hackathons. You might find a great sponsor & supporter by appealing with your needs to a local IT company.