Hackathons
Throughout the course, our students may have the opportunity to work on Hackathons organised by CodeYourFuture or partner organisations.
Goals
The goals of the Hackathon are as follows in priority order
The trainees have the chance to put their learning into practice in a low risk environment
The trainees get experience working in a team
The trainees get to meet experienced developers (if pairing with external developers)
The teams produce some useful that will be used
Steps Required Running a Hackathon
More details about these steps can be found below
Sign off from Programme Managers & Education Team to run a Hackathon
All Stakeholders must decide when the Hackathon will run
Dicuss with Education Team about the technologies that the participants will be encouraged to use
Decide on the Challenges that will be set
Find and onboard Volunteers
Select and onboard Trainees
Prerequisite
Before a Hackathon can happen sign-off must be given from
Local Programme Manager(s)
Local Education Team
In addition to this, the depending on when during the course takes place the Education Team must be consonsulted on
When the Hackathon runs
To make sure it doesn't clash with any other events
What technologies the particpants will be using
To make sure that the hackathon compliments trainees learning rather than being in conflict
Trainee Constraints
If a Hackathon is taking place during the duration of a class (i.e. before Graduation) then there are some constraints on the trainees
Coursework Comes First
Above all else, the trainees must prioritise their coursework before doing any work on the hackathon.
For some trainees this can be up to twenty hours of work a week
Only Fully Up To Date Trainees
The trainee must have no outstanding coursework
Only Part Time Paid Working or Less
Some of our trainees work in paid jobs. We ask that they don't partake in any hackathons if they are already working more than twenty hours a week of paid work.
If the Hackathon happens outside of a scheduled course you should also be thoughtful of
Time constraints because of work
Many of our trainees will be working part or full time
Family constraints
Many of our students look after children or relatives
Hackathon Volunteers
As a volunteer on a Hackathon you have several aims over the project
Teach our students about how a hackathon works
Our trainees will never have take part in a hackathon
Guide our trainees on working on quick turnover projects
This could mean guiding them towards an MVP over a larger project
Create a valuable product for us
With your outside perspective we'd love to see some of your solutions to the problems we face
Have fun!
Most of all, we want to make sure you have a great time working with our trainees. They're eager to learn and always excited to meet developers like you.
Challenges
Our Hackthons will either be based around a project idea or a general theme.
For example we may have a business problem such as
We need a website that allows us to track attendance through the course. It must be able to register students who attend on time, late and who do not attend. It must be able to accessed only be verified volunteers.
In the above example we have a specific tool in mind that we know we need built in order to do what we do better.
Alternatively, we might have a problem that we need a creative solution for. For example
Our trainee often have trouble managing their time and submitted homework before each lesson.
For more general problems like this we're looking to your creativity to help us solve the problems in ways we haven't thought of yet.
Previous Hackathon
Here are some example hackathon that we've run with partners in the past
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