Creating a hackathon website can be really challenging. The Assemble website took almost a month to design! You can view it here and the code here. Complex or simple, beautiful or janky–the best hackathon sites have a unique branding & feel special!
You'll want to include:
- The basics about your event (date, location etc.).
- A description of your event & hackathons.
- Photos of previous events (you can use Assemble's!).
- Contact infomation for your team.
- A registration / interest form.
Other great hackathon websites include:
To market Assemble we sent out an email blast to the Hack Club emailing list & a message in #announcements on Slack.
Subject: Hackers, assemble! ~ San Francisco, Early August 2022
Hi everyone!
Sam from the Hack Club team here. You’ve probably heard about great IRL hackathons, but if you’re my age (17) you probably haven’t been to one.
This summer, Hack Club is going to return in-person high-school hackathons to San Francisco. Our goal is to kick off a renaissance in the hackathon scene and we want you, as a Hack Club leader, to be a part of it.
We invite you, friend, to come out and join us IRL in the Bay Area from 6:00pm August 5th to noon August 7th. We’ll be hosted at the fantastic Figma HQ on Market Street in the heart of San Francisco.
Over the weekend, you’ll explore the Bay Area during your free time, hack with co-conspirators, and experience the energy of being in-person again. Together, we’ll Assemble to form the first IRL high school hackathon on this side of the pandemic.
One hackathon doesn’t constitute a renaissance, so we’re open-sourcing and documenting everything we work on for Assemble. It'll be remixable and allow you all to create incredible hackathons in your communities.
Registration & more details are available at assemble.hackclub.com.
Hackers, assemble!
Sam
(like in all Hack Club emails, we respect your privacy and don't track whether you open this email or click links in it. if you'd like to unsubscribe, click here)
Hello friends! You’ve probably heard about great IRL hackathons – ex. Windy City Hacks, Hack Chicago & Hack Pennsylvania but if you’re my age you probably haven’t gone to one.
This summer, we’re going to return in-person high-school hackathons to San Francisco. Our goal is to kick off a renaissance in the hackathon scene. We invite you, friend, to come out and join us. Not through Zoom or Discord, but IRL in the Bay Area from 6:00pm August 5th to noon August 7th. We’ll be hosted at the fantastic Figma HQ on Market Street in the heart of San Francisco.
Over the weekend, you’ll explore the Bay Area during your free time, hack with co-conspirators, and experience the energy of being in-person again. Together, we’ll Assemble to form the first IRL high school hackathon on this side of the pandemic.
One hackathon doesn’t constitute a renaissance, so we’re open-sourcing and documenting everything we work on for Assemble will be remixable to allow you all to create incredible hackathons in their communities.
Registration & more details are available at assemble.hackclub.com.
Hackers, #assemble!
P.S. Well done to those who solved our puzzle! Thanks for playing along and for helping others along the way. The puzzle itself has been open-sourced here for those interested: https://github.com/hackclub/assemble-puzzle.
Here's how I talked about hackathons.hackclub.com on in Assembling Assemble #1:
This website is the gift that keeps on giving! By getting our hackathon
on to there we became the first Google result for “high school hackathon
san francisco”. We’ve received a fair few registrations from that which
is wonderful. 10/10 would recommend.
Adding your hackathon takes a couple of minutes & puts your hackathon at the top of Google in a couple of days!
One goal for Assemble was to have a gender diverse group of attendees. One way we accomplished this was by working with Girls Who Code.
The partnership started months before Assemble. Christina and Abby (from the Hack Club team) had met with Tarika Barret (CEO of Girls Who Code) and started a relationship with her. At the same time, Craig Newmark a Hack Club donor introduced us to another Girls Who Code team member. Girls Who Code sent out an email blast to alumni of one of their programs inviting them to apply to Assemble.
From this example with Girls Who Code it is clear to see that using your network is key in establishing funding and specific participants. One way we would suggest going about it is by looking through your connections on LinkedIn and figuring out who you could ask for support from.
Going on with the theme of using your network. We also reached out to other female-identifying leaders in the tech community. We connected with Stephanie Su, who started Superposition. Superposition is the Bay Area's largest hackathon for underrepresented genders. Stephanie was able to share this opportunity with her network.