

Ask HN: Organising a Hackathon. Many put off by "hack". What Should I Call It? - whitewhim

As I said my school is small and many don't have much interaction with the outside tech world. I really want to Organise a hackathon and get my fellow students involved in building stuff. The few that I've explained it too are super interested however most when they first hear the word "hack" immediately get put off because they don't know how to "hack" into computers. What might be a more successful title I could use?
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27182818284
"Homebrew Web Weekend"?

Adapt to whatever you're doing, so if you're working with Arduino, Hombrew
Arduino Weekend, Homebrew Robot Weekend, Homebrew Lisp Weekend, etc.

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skram
I've attended events which were hackathons in nature but called a
"tinkerathon" and the more obvious "codeathon".

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lifeisstillgood
Honestly, a hackathon.

I would suggest your goal is not to persuade everyone else this is a good idea
and then step forward together. It's to step forward, confident enough people
will follow you.

I suggest just announce it, "hackathon arranged for Saturday 15th, torvalds
hall, 8-5pm. Kicks with with talk by f bloggs on architecture of foobar
project, by the end of the day we commit working code, documentation, tests
and artwork to github. All skill levels welcome - rememebr real programmers
ship. Pizzas after we commit."

Those who can or are just willing will work it out. And put up a page with
more details, the contrib page, a link to ESRs "how to be a hacker" -
<http://www.catb.org/esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html>

People will follow you. But not till you are in front.

Good luck

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whitewhim
Thanks for this. One of my goals is to get my fellow students more involved in
the building side of things and not just the academics. Get some real world
stuff going.

