My first hackathon was this year, and I have completed nearly 15 online hackathons this year. Let me share my journey, achievements, and my failures.

Introduction

According to me, Hackathons are no more than (mostly) the use of new technology to solve a particular program in the minimum time possible. Also, most of them have swags and prizes.

Nah Nah Nah, It isn't that much money, but you get in a fair amount. Let me now share my participation and achievements.

My participation

I have won quite good prizes from taking part in hackathons this year. And I learned a heck lot of things just because I took part in hackathons.

Let me just create a timeline of hackathons:

1. Thirdweb x Hashnode

It was organized by our very own thirdweb and hashnode. I didn't have any idea but it was on January 2022. Meaning I started hackathons at the beginning of 2022. Yes, it feels strange now knowing when I started.

It was my first hackathon so I just wrote a lot of thing, now let me just wirte in short.

• Date: January 2022

• Duration: 1 month

• Won? -> Nah

• Tech to use: Thirdweb

• Project: A NFT marketplace (Buy, sell and mint NFT)

  • Live website

  • Source code

Learnings:

It was my first web3 project. I learned about metamask wallet, and how to use the Ethereum network. And most important of all, I learned data once written can't be erased from the blockchain. This is the only reason why I haven't continued in web3 afterward.

2. Netlify x Hashnode

• Date: February 2022

• Duration: 1 month

• Won? -> Nah

• Tech to use: Netlify

• Project: A place to write your last wish and fulfill others

  • Live website

  • Source code

Learnings

I learned to use netlify better. I used netlify form submissions with React. I used firebase, I used to be scared of it at that time. Also, learned to edit videos (for demo).

3. Hasura x Hashnode

• Date: March 2022

• Duration: 1 month

• Won? -> Yes, Runner up

• Tech to use: Hasura

• Project: Learn programming while typing or vice-versa

  • Live website

  • Source code

Learnings

The very new thing I learned during this hackathon is that fonts have different widths . Also, monospace letters have equal width.

4. Linode x Hashnode

• Date: June 2022

• Duration: 1 month

• Won? -> Yes, Winner

• Tech to use: Linode

• Project: Track price of your product or stock

  • Live website

  • Source code

Learnings

In this hackathon, I learned web scraping using puppeteer. Also, to host a MERN web app on a raw linux server and map to a domain using Nginx.

Two hackathons in a row. Oh boy, that was epic.

5. Redis x Dev.to

• Date: August 2022

• Duration: 1 month

• Won? -> Yes, Runner up

• Tech to use: Redis

• Project: Search Engine

  • Live website

  • Source code

Learnings

In this hackathon, I enhanced my learning of web scraping using puppeteer. Also, to host a MERN web app on a raw digital ocean droplet and map it to a domain using Nginx. And using Redis as a database on its top.

Wow, three in a row 😅

6. Aws Amplify x Hashnode

• Date: September 2022

• Duration: 1 month

• Won? -> Nah

• Tech to use: AWS Amplify

• Project: Generate a dev card with the number of lines of code you have written

  • Live website

  • Source code

7. NASA Spaceapps hackathon

• Date: October 2022

• Duration: 36 hours

• Won? -> Nah

• Tech to use: NASA APIs

• Project: International Space Station tracker

  • Live website

  • Source code

After this, Hacktoberfest started and I started taking part in a lot of hackathons. Let me share only few of them in details.

8. Nhost x ReacPlay

• Date: October 2022

• Duration: 14 days

• Won? -> Yes, Third

• Tech to use: Nhost

• Project: Know if your email was read or not

  • Live website

  • Source code

Learnings

In this hackathon, I learned pixel tracking. Also, to use Nhost as a database, doing Graphql requests, and use Nhost serverless functions.

9. Notjust.dev x Nhost x Stream

• Date: November 2022

• Duration: 48 hours

• Won? -> Yes, Special price winner

• Tech to use: Nhost or Stream

• Project: A mobile app that gives you updates on the world cup 2022 match

  • App download

  • Source code

Learnings

In this hackathon, I learned to build a mobile application with React Native. Also, to use Stream for chat messaging.

10. Steel city code

11. Findcoder.io x locofy.ai

12. Medusa js hackathon

13. Inov-8-hackathon

14. MongoDB x Dev.to

I don't even remember other hackathons😅.

Yes, I don't have any experience with offline hackathons, I know some of the rules and time periods but for the most, I have only participated in a 5-hour-long offline competition (which I will not call a hackathon). At least I have participated in some online hackathons, so here is my experience with online hackathons.

Achievements

I feel great looking at my hackathon journeys, I built a lot of good projects this year. And want to build a lot more. Before that let me share some of my achievements here:

Got featured in Linode's craft of code

Got a participation certificate from steel city codes

120kg CO2 offset

Special prize from Notjust.dev

Got a participation certificate from the Medusa hackathon

Third position

Findcoder.io hackathon participation certificate

NASA Spaceapps participation certificate

Linode hackathon winner

Summary

To summarize the whole journey, I got various opportunities to learn more stuffs, explore new technologies, and engage with the community. Most importantly I was able to manage some time for these events. I don't know how but I passed two exams during these hackathons. I have also participated in other hackathons but I didn't find any room to fit that in here so I left it.