blueboxes/minihack

Currently in prototype mode.

What is This?

MiniHack is a monthly meetup where teams of between 3 and 6 people compete to produce the best solution to a given problem.

What do you mean by 'The Best'?

Each month there will be a three judges (we're hoping to get a special guest each month).
The solutions will be judged on the following criteria:

1. Requirements (10 points)
   1. Should do what is asked
   2. Points deducted for defects
2. Inovation (10 points)
   1. Original solution
   2. Clever or unexpected use of tech
3. Cool (10 points)
   1. Looks cool
   2. Does something unexpected or cool

This means there's a total of 30 points available - highest points wins.

Who Can Join, and How Are the Teams Made?

Anyone can join.

Anyone - even if you've never written a line of code in your life. In fact, that's part of the point of this.

When you sign up, you'll be asked for your experience level. We'll try to form teams with a broad range of experience.
The idea is to match very experienced people with people that have less.

You'll also be asked whether you're okay to be the spokesperson for your team - that is, the person that demonstrates what's been produced at the end. We'll need at least one of these on each team.

The teams will be decided before the event.

Can I Work in the Technology That I Know Best?

Yes, and maybe no.

We'll ask when you sign up which tech you'd like to work with (if any). If you fill that in, we'll try and match you with other people that say the same. Obviously, if you say that you only want to code in Ook, there's a possibility that we won't be able to find a match.

I'm a Busy Person - How Long Will This Take

It's a mini-hackathon, so we'll try and keep the whole thing to under two hours - that's:

10 minute intro 1 hour 30 minutes coding 10 minutes judging 10 minutes to announce the winners

Will I Win Anything If I / My Team Wins?

Probably not. At least not at the start.

We will, however, have an opt-in league table (opt-in each time):

• 3 pts if your team is first, or joint first
• 1 pt if your team is second (providing there are more than two teams)

What Kind of Problems Will There Be?

We'll try to keep it different each time. We'll also try to make it broad enough that you can use whatever tech you think fits the bill; some examples (these will be replaced by actual examples when we have some):

• Create a PacMan game where the player is the ghosts
• Create a UI system that could be used by someone who is completely blind
• Create a sales order system where stock magically appears and disappears and random points

What Happens to the Code That Gets Produced?

It goes in here.

What if we Don't Finish?

Doesn't matter - it's all for fun - so if you learn something, have a laugh, and have a talk to other people, it's a successful event.

Are There any Rules?

Yes: be excellent to each other!
Any discrimination or abuse will get you removed from your team.

Pre-Requisites

The following would be useful:

A code editor, for example VS Code.

A git client, for example git bash.