What I Learned from My First Hackathon (And Why You Should Join One Too)
Imagine being part of a 24-hour marathon where innovation meets creativity… Welcome to the world of hackathons! As someone who's passionate about growing outside his job, I've discovered that hackathons are one of the best ways to level up your skills and confidence.
What is a hackathon?
A hackathon is an event where individuals or teams collaborate intensively to create software or hardware projects. It's a chance to innovate, problem-solve, and be creative within a limited timeframe.
I recently joined an online hackathon organized by Dev.to community, and it was an eye-opening experience. I learned about building AI applications using TimescaleDB’s pgai extension with the option to use Ollama. In this article, I'll share what I learned from my first hackathon and why you should consider joining one too.
The Motivation
As a software engineer, I've seen firsthand how Generative AI (GenAI) is revolutionizing our field. But when it first emerged, I was stuck in the past – not having had the chance to get hands-on experience with this game-changing technology.
It's funny how sometimes life and career can be like that… better late than never! And that's precisely what happened when I stumbled upon TimescaleDB's hackathon challenge. It sparked something within me, and I knew it was time to join the GenAI revolution.
The spark
I love weightlifting, and I’m always looking to improve my exercise form. I’m always curious about how to optimize my muscle growth aka hypertrophy with less time and injuries. To achieve that, I’m following Dr. Mike and Jeff Nippard. They are two of the trusted bodybuilders in the community. I thought of building an AI agent based on their public knowledge. This can help me with my exercise plans. I talked about the idea more in another post.
What if learned
During this hackathon, I learned many things that I was reading about, and I didn’t have an opportunity to use and gain experience with it. You probably heard about the RAG on X (formerly known as Twitter) or tech blogs during the quarter 4 in 2024. I read many articles about RAG, but I never built one. RAG was a black box for me and something difficult to do. This is a human nature, if you don’t know about something, you can’t evaluate it.
I built the AI agent and called it BuddyFit. The core of BuddyFit is a RAG that I built using pgai. The RAG is based on Jeff and Mike YouTube videos. To build it, I have to read more about RAG. What is it? How to build it? What is the difference between fine-tuning and RAG? When to use RAGs and when to use fine-tuning. What are vectors and why you need to store them, and more…
During the hackathon, I wasn't reading only to learn. I was reading to implement, to build, to gain knowledge, to get my hands dirty, and to discover a new skill.
This was the spark that led me into learning more about GenAI, subsequently, I had to learn about the embedding models. Wait, there are models besides the chat models like gpt-4o, gpt-4o-mini, and Llama? Yes, there are. Actually, without embedding models, you can’t build RAGs. Here is another unknown area I discovered during participating in the hackathon.
Benefits
Gaining experience in a specific domain or technology
I like learning by doing. I like to go through the discovery phase of learning. In this journey, you start with zero or little knowledge. Then you feel that you don't know anything. This mean returning to the feelings you had when you were a beginner again. Congratulations, You are outside your comfort zone. At the end, you end up with knowledge and experience.
Participating in a hackathon is a more intense version of what I mentioned earlier. It's tough to build a product with a fresh tech rushing.
Building a portfolio or resume
Participating in a hackathon helps in adding a project to your portfolio. It's a proof you have experience with a certain area. Especially if you are a beginner.
Where Can I find Hackathons?
You can find hackathons that organized and sponsored by many tech companies all over the internet. There is a chance that your company is running hackathons. So ask internally as well.
Here is a small list of the websites that you can find hackathons on:
Unlock Your Potential
Ready to level up your skills and confidence? Join an online hackathon like Dev.to's community, and get hands-on experience with the latest technologies. Sign up now and start building something amazing!
