Urban Tech Moscow is a hackathon with a prize fund of 10 rubles. 000 commands, 000 hours of code and 250 pizza slices. As it was firsthand in this article.
Straight to the point and all right.
Submission of applications
How the recruitment went is a mystery to us. We are a group of guys from a small town and one of us received an invitation to this event by mail. It was required to choose a topic, make a presentation and record a short video about what we are. We didn’t worry much about this, we did everything in 1 evening, sent it, confirmed participation, and a few days later we received a notification that we had passed. As usual, the video was absurd, the presentation was a blunder, apparently, there were not so many applications and the organizers recruited everyone in a row. Their website, by the way, did not work quite correctly, using the links to which it was necessary to confirm participation, confirmation did not occur the first time, which made us very nervous (in vain).
Assignments
The most important. The tasks were difficult, or if not difficult, then at least very steamy. . Our choice fell on task number 8, at first glance it seemed the easiest, in fact, far from it. Experts (people who help to better understand the task) did not get out of the hall, we were not the only ones who could not understand anything and constantly asked questions. A full understanding of the decision came only in the second half of the second day, which, of course, was too late.
Organization
That one has something to say. Feels better.
First day: Hospade, how cool it is here, and so, we allocate time, out of 60 hours, 8 for sleep, 3 for other needs, the rest for coooood! After all, there is a whole restaurant with its waiters, and how much food! It's so atmospheric and cool!
Second day: Are you going to feed us anything other than sandwiches? Why is the restaurant closed? Where are the liters of coffee? And yes, I slept 3 hours today sitting.
The third day: We don't make it! We need to work faster, they opened a coffee room and now I definitely won’t fall asleep!
Fourth day: Everything, everything is handed over, now we are waiting for the results. What? Are we not included in the list? Amazing! Thank you! Who did win? Yes, you are kidding! Their program does not solve any of the tasks, it's just a pre-made product for other purposes. Give me these judges. Well, at least the food is okay. ABOUT! Vinishko was brought, but here it’s already good.
About pizza
As for the first day, everything was really good. Grand opening, food. But on the first day, something not very good happened. Above, I wrote about 800 slices of pizza, it was not enough from the word at all. This is where I started to hate programmers. After we brought all these pieces, we sat for another 5 minutes at the PC, it was difficult to get distracted, in the end, when we noticed people carrying 2 pizzas in their bare hands (not a piece, but a whole pizza), we realized that we might not to get it, and it happened, when we approached, it was like a scene from the Walking Dead, dozens of hands reached for the last pizza and snapped it up in a split second. Upon returning to the hall with a disgusting mood, hatred for the code and everyone involved in it, I noticed a picture in which 3 adult men (30+) were sitting with a huge mountain of pieces (3-5 whole pizzas), I was ready to tear and throw, but they were not alone, and the hope of victory was stronger than the love of pizza. Don't do it, friends, it's very ugly.
After this incident, food began to be scarce. They gave 1 small sandwich, and even small things, yes, you could go several times, if they didn’t set fire to it, of course, but it was still not comfortable. I understand them, I will not scold them. If they had not done so, 2000 people would have stolen everything in a matter of seconds, so much so that no one would get anything. In this regard, everything was thought out poorly. I would suggest not to allow food to be taken out with you. If you want to eat - eat at the table, then everyone will get it.
About the workplace
I didn't like the jobs. There were no partitions, office chairs, sitting for a long time made you sweat, there were no tables for standing work. At the expense of partitions - this is really an important topic. Due to the fact that everyone sees everything, you had to close the laptops every time you move away from them. There were enough scouts wandering between the tables and looking out for your idea. We suspect that our solution was brazenly stolen by other participants, but crookedly stolen, as it usually happens. Luckily they didn't win. How many are the same? Also, there was no wired internet on site, only wifi, but it worked ..., oh yes, it didn’t work. You approach the organizers, you say - your wifi does not work, do something, for which you - everything works. There was no wired Internet either, I asked for a cable, they didn’t have it either. It would be a little impudent to ask them for computers, but I will do it, we don’t have laptops (we don’t need them), we had to take what we have, and what we have - it would be better if it wasn’t. It would be great if they put a PC for each person, but got rid of professional waiters and an orchestra. Fortunately, you could work anywhere and no one bothered you.
About sleep
There were quiet places. Somehow I didn’t have time to take a picture, I went there 1 time, I didn’t spend more than a minute. The fact is that it all looked like some kind of shelter. Naked air mattresses, people covered with some kind of rags on them, again no personal space and partitions. One snores - all do not sleep. We slept either on the stairs (in the first video) or in the lounge area. Although most often did not sleep at all
About the shower
It was not, although promised. Muscovites still rode home to wash, while the rest emitted depressing smells a day later. We had to use wet wipes. Here is a serious disadvantage.
About the organizers
All the time there were organizers (or volunteers) in the building, the guys who answered us organizational questions, helped with everything we needed and prompted. They are really great, they ran non-stop (I don’t know if they slept at all), I hope they got paid.
About grades
Here is a serious puncture, in my opinion. The evaluation was carried out according to 4 criteria:
- Efficiency (from 0 to 4 points).
- Originality of the idea (from 0 to 4 points).
- Scalability (from 0 to 3 points).
- Monetization model (from 0 to 3 points)
If the criteria are still adequate, then the presentation is not. The speech before the judges was given 3 minutes + 3 minutes of answers to questions, which, for me, was absolutely not enough. 5 minutes is the minimum required for this. During this time, it was impossible for the judges to properly show either the program or tell about the reason for the chosen decision. Next time, I hope there won't be such a rush.
About our result
If anyone is interested. We didn’t have time to finish the task, the time was given not 60 hours, but 50, 10 hours before the end, everything had to be handed over and the repository would close, it’s not clear why, because the check was on the trail. day is appointed. We didn't have enough time to finish it. In the end, everyone abandoned it, then they remembered that they forgot about the database, spoke with the organizers, we were allowed to upload the database to Google Cloud or Git, which we did. But then we were told that we were not included in the lists at all. Although later I found out that the reviewer was submitting our team's scores. What is the most annoying thing. Yes, most likely, this is our fault and there is nothing to blame something on someone. We plan to continue the work, the expert assessed our solution as very promising. Made some interesting connections.
About everyone
At the very beginning they gave out backpacks with sweaters, it was nice. Although I said that they fed a little, but we did not go hungry. Not a single penny has been spent all day. In the end, steaks with Caesar were served at all. There was a concert at the closing, which was also very good.
Сonclusion
I like it. If it weren’t for minor shortcomings, like food, soul and jobs, it would be generally class! If you asked me if I would go again, I would answer unequivocally - yes. Thanks to everyone who helped us and everyone who organized this event, I hope next time you will take into account past mistakes and do better.
PS: according to the article, it may seem that due to the abundance of minuses, the event did not work out, which is not so. Yes, there are disadvantages, but in the light of other advantages, they are lost. Thank you.
Source: habr.com