About a week ago, I attended my first hackathon hosted by the non-profit organization hackNY. What is a hackathon? It is an event where a bunch of programmers come together and build something within a certain amount of time. How long do they last? This one was 24 hours, others can last up to an entire week. What do they build? Programs, applications, web apps, perhaps even more. The rules of this hackathon was to build something awesome within 24 hours.

The day-long event began at 2pm on a Saturday and ended 2pm Sunday. A variety of delicious foods was served regularly throughout the entire night to keep the hackers energized and awake. Lots of Redbull and Monster energy drinks too.

After the hackers registered and signed in, we sat in the auditorium waiting for representatives from various web startup companies in NYC present their API’s. The API is basically documentation that teaches you how to use a company’s software in your own applications. So for example, if I wanted to build an application that would allow me to input an address which would then output the location on a Google Map and present pictures of the nearby area on a Panoramio Widget, I would use the Google Maps API and the Panoramio API to see how I could incorporate their services into my program. This is basically what I, along with a few others, built that night.

To say the least, my experience there showed me how challenging developing web applications can be. It is quite different from the non-web programming I have done in Java and C++. My brief background in computer science allowed me to write and interpret code, but as far as actually creating a web application was quite challenging and unfamiliar. I actually felt quite demoralized by this, as I realized how inept my software development skills were. This was particularly demoralizing given my desire is to be a tech innovator.

However, I was fortunate enough to meet people there who were at my level, and even more fortunate to meet experienced coders willing to help us get started. After the hackathon event, we maintained communication with each other and expressed an interest in continuing to learn how to do web development. We are currently working on a collaborative project outside of school. It will be fast paced and will likely take a chunk of my time, but I think the experience will be worth it.

Part of my new resolution was to take more risks. Taking on this project bears some risks, particularly to my academics, but what great opportunity does not involve taking risks? The late Steve Jobs has shown us that the things you build can change the world. Sometimes, you have to stop studying how something works, and actually make it. Let’s start building.

Hackers at the hackathon