🗃️Planning Your Hackathon
The Basics
At the top of your planning, you'll want to think through who is organizing along with you and establish other folks (like school admin) who may need to be included in your planning process.
From there, you'll select a date, location, theme, determine the number of attendees, and create a basic schedule. Many of these factors will need to be worked around other events and activities to ensure your space and date are available and can support all the students you want to attend, but the theme and schedule are totally up to you!
Themes can be anything from silly to serious and you may enjoy mining our theme and prompt idea page for more information. Feel free to alter prompts to best fit the needs and interests of your student population!
Schedules are also within your control, but should contain the following:
Clear start time
Defined lunch time
Clear stop CODING time - when coding stops, presentations and/or judging will begin.
Defined presentation/judging and/or award time
Clear end time
You can view our sample schedule for a better idea of best practices.
Setting Up A Space
You will need to decide where your Hackathon is taking place! While you can certainly seek out a third-party location if you have a connection, many Hackathons for high schoolers will end up taking place in a school, so the following locations are all possibilities:
Gymnasium: great for medium-large Hackathons with 30+ participants. Can be difficult to identify outlets/set up a screen for display purposes, and all furniture/supplies will need to be moved in and out.
Auditorium: great for large Hackathons of 30+ participants. Can be difficult to identify outlets, and while there are chairs present, students will likely not have or have limited table access and may have issues sitting in configurations that offer opportunities to collaborate.
Classroom: great for small Hackathons of <30 participants, such as one for a single class. Most furniture is present but may need to be rearranged. Depending on the building, outlets may still be hard to come by.
Multiple Classrooms: an option for medium to large Hackathon of 30+ people as each room can hold several groups. This may limit some of the community building/energy that you get from being altogether in a single space like a gym, and some rooms may have a more positive experience than others.
While it seems like folks would just need a computer to get started, there are a surprising amount of elements to plan for in setting up a space. You'll want to ensure there are tables/chairs present and maybe even more importantly, power-strips and extension cords. A good rule of thumb is to make sure that each table can reach at least one extension cord.
If you are trying to make the Hackathon extra special, consider finding some table cloths, balloons, or other decorations for the day of. You'll want to plan in some space checks:
One week before: ensure your space is reserved as planned and that all furniture/equipment is available
Day before: check for any special instructions in regards to using your equipment/space and make sure you have a setup plan. Double check all equipment is ready and available.
Morning of: set up space and equipment, make sure everything works.
Need to Travel?
If you are traveling to another location for the Hackathon, make sure you plan your travel needs in advance.
Likely, your school has a trip proposal form, or your principal may ask you to submit a trip plan. This will also require you to create and distribute permission slips to students - ask your school if they have a template for this purpose.
If you are traveling to somewhere more than walking distance, determine the best method of travel to get there. If it is accessible via train/bus, your school can help you obtain a transit certificate.
Please note that in New York City, field trip transit certificates are only accepted between 9:30am - 3:00pm and do not work on buses. If this does not fit the needs of your trip, you can apply for special extension certificates (again, your school can help you here) or use the DOE portal to request a yellow bus for your trip.
Regardless of your method of travel, be sure to check in one week prior to make sure plans are in order. Confirming travel is secured the day before can also stop you from encountering any snags on the day-of!
Technology
While you could do a no-code Hackathon that only focuses on design and wire framing with paper products, you will likely need a computer(s) for each participating team. Be sure to determine in advance how many computers each team of students will need (one per person? two per team? etc) and where the computers are coming from - are they bringing their own? Using computers from a school cart? Regardless of location, make sure they come charged! If you're hosting the Hackathon, you'll also want to check-in on technology for your space. Having a screen/large projector can help to display instructions, agenda, action items, timers, etc to a big group. In a large room like a gym or auditorium, you may want a mic. Speakers can also be nice to play music during work time. If your Hackathon involves extra materials - like microbits - make sure they are available!
You'll want to check your technology the day before to ensure it is available and charging. The morning of, double-check those chargers and make sure everythign is set up correctly.
Other Materials
Great projects don't happen instantaneously, so you may want to provide some planning materials. These materials may vary depending on what you are asking students to do, but generally pens, markers, highlighters, paper/graph paper, notecards, post-its are all appreciated. If students are doing a table presentation, larger paper/poster board may be useful. Additionally, if funding permits, having fun treats like t-shirts, pins, etc to commemorate the event are always welcome. They can be based off the event or merit based - maybe make different variety of pins and hand them out for different activities, like leaving good comments, collaborating, being a masterful designer, etc, or have a t-shirt that is for winning teams. Similarly, having snacks on hand - especially some candy for a little sugar boost - is a nice touch if it's available! If there is funding for your Hackathon, you may also consider using some to get lunch for participants. If that's not in the cards, ensure that you have made lunch plans - either having them bring their own, or making arrangements with the school cafeteria. Verify the lunch order the day before!
Personnel: Helpers, Chaperones, Etc
Hackathons, especially large ones, are no fun to run all by yourself. You will likely need some other people in the room helping you. If those folks are adults from your school, you may be relying on their benevolence or assistance from your administration to make the event run smoothly. Consider the following roles that can help your event run smoothly:
Chaperones/Helpers: Having other adults to just make sure folks are on task and working is a huge help. It's helpful to have a one-pager you can hand them with guiding questions and instructions that they can use as they circulate.
Mentors: If you have the good fortune of having other CS teachers or professionals in your Hackathon space, consider giving them a mentorship role; they will check-in on teams and offer guidance to improve their projects during the day.
Student Mentors: Similarly, if you are running a Hackathon for younger students/students in an intro course, consider asking more advanced students to assist.
Judges: Hackathons typically have a winner (or winners in different categories) and for that, you must have judges! They do not need to be CS experts, but they should have guidance on what they are looking for.
If you are running a large hackathon with folks in and out through the day, be sure to make and distribute a schedule so people know when to be present and what their role is, especially if the roles shift over the course of the day.
Forming Teams
An important part of Hackathons is forming teams. It is up to you if students select these teams, if you create them in advance, or if you make them day-of.
If you are making them day-of, you may want to have students do some brainstorming or ideation of the type of projects they want to work on, then rank their top choices. You can use that to form student groups based around interest. Make sure you have some games/team builders/other activities (such as a tutorial or similar) that can hold student attention while you formulate groups if you do choose to make groups day of the event.
Day of the Hackathon
Once you've done everything to prepare, you will finally be at the day of the Hackathon! Before it begins, make sure you know who is coming. If participation isn't based on course enrollment, you may need to advertise your Hackathon and come with a sign up process for students or teams.
If it's a big one, you may want a seating chart or protocols around arrival/dismissal. Consider when you may need slides/visuals or music/announcements. In the morning setup, consider the setup and what is needed at each table - design journals, prototyping materials, etc. Judges may need a rubric, and you may want to have planned activities (team builders, games, tutorials, etc) for students during times when adults need to make decisions that could take time.
Last updated