If you’re a newbie there are a lot of things to be taken care of but there’s nothing to worry about; Hackathons are just problem solving in a group within a short time frame. You’ll have to think of a creative idea and implement it. It provides you with a chance to apply all the skills you have learned through your coursework to solve real-life issues. Just try to follow some tips and you’ll easily get by and will definitely be having a nerve-wracking yet fantastic weekend.

• So choose your team members wisely – You will have to complement each other’s skills. Obviously all need not to be coders, you need a developer, designer and project manager. OR Sign up as an individual - Most hackathons have a “team formation room”.

• Ask what you don’t get – There are a lot of mentors available to help you. Additionally it gives you a chance to network and meet skilled individuals who can guide you later too.

• Make sure you do have plan – Try to get organized. Set small goals to work through and draw it out before you code it all up.

• Code with purpose - “If a picture is worth 1000 words, a prototype is worth 1000 meetings.” Definitely true. But it might be of no use if it doesn't fit the theme of the hackathon.

• If you want to win try to work on the problem statement beforehand. In the limited time frame it’s better to work on solution instead of working out which problem to take up.

• Cut of the extra work- Use already built methods instead of working on one, it’s just waste of time.

• Try to come up with a working prototype - Judges aren't expecting a finished app, but they would like to see a demonstrable one.

• Being a newbie try to make your experience the most fun. Do attend the fun games and the workshops scheduled as you’ll learn what you don’t know, and you’ll be growing as a developer.

Regardless of the language you know, a hackathon will be fun and useful. You will never learn faster than you will at a hackathon. If you participate you may not win, but you most certainly will be improving your skills, learning how to work on a team, creating something from nothing and having fun.

It was great experience to apply and appear for hackCBS. An unexplainable experience in words started in the morning around 9 in the morning. A couple of queues for us to stand in and apply for workshops. Those workshops taught us the way in which we should head so as to move towards bright future. A break then was a must needed thing and as if they knew what we wanted. The next workshop whose topic was Bug Bounty was one of my personal interests tapped, so I learned a lot about it as well.

Then the most awaited thing was to be announced i.e. about the hackathon's themes. And that was the time when we had the energy at the top notch. The mentors were assigned, the time began, not knew what exactly to do because it was our first hackathon.

Oh wait! we need not to worry, the mentors helped us way too far than we expected. It truly justified of learning by sharing. Some of our not known become friends and they helped us a lot.

By this time we came to know that the whole team of Kronos was also one of the best things we could get. They helped us as well as others at all corners. It was midnight 3A.M. everyone working on their programs/codes and the coffee we got that time was needed and that was actually a good idea. It’s not about us only but the participants present their also appreciated that thing. It was until morning breakfast that we saw this. The same schedule with many interactive sessions, interactive games, and demos were going on.

How to forget about the stickers, swags, goodies we got!! Those were the 2 most productive days of my life.

As the judges saw our program they were happy with the programs we showed. This boosted our moral and hence our chances to continue to code brightened and at last the refreshments we got were very good.