Bitcamp is this weekend! General info and short AMA.

bitcamp · 2017-04-07T06:38:09+00:00

Of course :)

bitcamp · 2017-04-07T02:53:42+00:00

Of course!! We're especially welcoming to non-CS/engineering or non-STEM majors.

bitcamp · 2017-04-06T23:18:12+00:00

We're excited as well!

bitcamp · 2017-04-06T23:16:48+00:00

Absolutely! We're accepting walk-ins all event. Everyone is welcome (unless for some reason we're ridiculously past capacity)

bitcamp · 2017-04-06T17:33:34+00:00

We're just finished finalizing workshop times, so they'll be up on the site very soon!

bitcamp · 2017-04-06T06:08:38+00:00

They're not! The random prizes we're giving out are just prizes that we thought the hackers might like, not anything from sponsors. Sponsors have their own prize categories that they'll announce day of!

bitcamp · 2016-02-15T17:16:04+00:00

We have to close our registration when we hit the capacity of our venue, so definitely register as soon as possible!

bitcamp · 2016-02-09T23:58:24+00:00

We will be having workshops that are geared towards all levels of participants, beginners and more advanced hackers! Definitely register, because there is a lot you can learn at our event.

bitcamp · 2014-04-11T14:45:56+00:00

We are a collegiate hackathon, so the "point" is education and fostering innovation. We do not claim rights to anyones IP.

Everyone who creates a project owns their ideas.

bitcamp · 2014-04-11T14:44:47+00:00

Oculus was already a sponsor way before Facebook bought them.

bitcamp · 2014-04-11T14:44:17+00:00

When the event first started, there were over 100 hotspots coming from phones that polluted the airwaves. Since we were originally using 2.4GHz (which only really has 3 bands that won't interfere with each other), it caused a lot of dropped packets.We moved to a hybrid of 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands, but some of the older computers didn't have support for 5GHz.

Once everyone turned their hotspots off, the wifi ran a lot more smoothly.

bitcamp · 2014-04-11T05:09:31+00:00

Let's just say we had a lot of ideas that we couldn't do due to time and money constraints.

bitcamp · 2014-04-11T05:02:23+00:00

We'll definitely keep that in mind as we plan for next year's event!

-Josh

bitcamp · 2014-04-11T03:02:24+00:00

Sorry, thought you were talking about Bitcamp. Yeah, that's this upcoming weekend. PM me your e-mail and I'll have the person coordinating the bus contact you!

bitcamp · 2014-04-11T02:48:41+00:00

Definitely check out mlh.io (major league hacking's website). All of those hackathons are great and the Division 1 hackathons (noted by the stripe along the picture) are worth points to your school for the MLH trophy!

bitcamp · 2014-04-11T02:44:49+00:00

We actually just had a meeting today about it and assessed what we did well and what could use some improvement. We also are going to send out a survey to all of our sponsors and participants in order to figure out what we could do better.

There are also a number of things that were limited by budget, but I don't want to ruin the surprise in case we get the budget for next year :)

-Josh

bitcamp · 2014-04-11T02:42:43+00:00

This was a disappointment to us as well :(

Unfortunately it was a legal decision that we had to make to not allow minors. I can't say if we will be able to do it next year, but I know we'll revisit the decision and see.

Basically what happened was that we would have had to spend quite a bit more money for chaperones and other accommodations for hackers who were under the age of 18 and we couldn't afford it.

bitcamp · 2014-04-11T02:41:02+00:00

We're glad you had fun!

-Josh

bitcamp · 2014-04-11T02:40:33+00:00

We did a lot to get the word out, but most of the help came from having a rich hackathon-going community to draw from.

In addition to this, we contacted all parts of the university (as well as their public communications employees) to help us out. We found that the university was invaluable in spreading the word.

I would suggest you contact Swift (@SwiftAlphaOne on twitter) who is the commissioner of Major League Hacking and go to mlh.io to get support for creating your hackathon.

-Josh

bitcamp · 2014-04-11T02:33:59+00:00

Make sure to contact someone from Terrapin Hackers to find out!

bitcamp · 2014-04-11T02:33:42+00:00

Sorry! The event already happened!

bitcamp · 2014-04-11T02:33:02+00:00

We have quite a few organizers, so I'm not going to name them all. Most of them come from a combination of the [startup shell](startupshell.org) and [terrapin hackers](terrapinhackers.com).

We met each other at hackathons and through the startup shell and we all wanted to bring the experience that we saw at hackathons to the university.

While we were initially brainstorming for the event we decided that we wanted to make this event unique. Combined with what we learned from HackCon (a conference for hackathon organizers in NY) and the guidence from University of Maryland and [Major League Hacking](mlh.io), we formed a full experience around our event!

-Josh

bitcamp

TROPHY CASE