What to expect from Kingdom Code BUILD
Kingdom Code: Build is about gathering a people together who love to think about technology, design and build. Over the course of the weekend we’ll form teams and work together on projects that bring technology to bear on the great commission.
Perhaps you’ve heard of a hackathon, but have never quite known what to expect, or even if you should even go along… This blog post is for you, and will also tell you what is different about coming along to Kingdom Code: BUILD.
Friday night
Come in, make yourself at home! Grab your name badge, pick up some dinner and start meeting people in the room.
At 19.00 we’ll kick off the opening celebration– it’s a time for several things, most importantly to worship and pray together as we commit the weekend to God. Afterwards, each of the event sponsors are going to have a couple of minutes to introduce their challenge.
Pitches are one of the key things in the welcome celebration; some people will have come with plenty project ideas to work on, other people will just come along with a laptop and an enthusiasm to work on a team. During the pitches anyone who wants will get 60 seconds (no more!) to share:
- What the idea is
- Who it is for
- What skill sets are needed
Once everyone has shared their pitch, then it’s going to be over to you to pick a team to join and get stuck in with the project.
Build time
The venue is open all weekend, and you’ve got until 12.00 on Sunday to get your project built and submitted. To help make that happen we’ve got meals sorted for you all weekend, and coffee (or your preferred drinks) on tap.
Some people will work all night through, but that’s certainly not expected. We’ve got an area of the space where you can inflate an airbed or something similar and get some sleep. Alternatively, clock out, find a hostel or AirBnB and come back in the morning refreshed! Breakfast will be out from 08.30.
If you get stuck on a bug or a design challenge don’t keep it to yourself; there’s a whole room full of people who will have ideas of how to dig you out of a hole. Shout it out to the group, or share a message in the Slack team!
We’ll also be taking a break midway through Saturday to check in with teams working in cities all over the world and to pray together. This is one of the great privileges of the weekend.
Should everything get too much, then you can take a break with Princess, the Innovation Warehouse cat. She lives on site and will be around all weekend for cat therapy if you need it. (If you have a cat allergy, please bring antihistamines).
Sunday afternoon
At lunchtime on Sunday, building stops and projects are submitted, but that’s not the end of our weekend together. We rest over lunch together and then we come together for our afternoon celebration. Over the course of the weekend we’ll have times to pray together, on Sunday afternoon we’ll have an extended period of worship, praying and hearing from God’s word.
We’ll also be celebrating the work that has been done over the course of the weekend. As per Friday night, each team will have an opportunity to present their final project. The format is simple: two minutes to remind everyone in the room what they were working on and to do a demo. Be prepared to be asked questions from our judging panel and from the rest of the crowd!
The judging panel will break away for a discussion over which project best meets the spirit of each challenge. Meanwhile you get a chance to vote for your favourite project of the weekend.
We’ll award prizes, divide out the remaining gummy bears and pack down after another hackathon.
In the months before…
Sign up!
Seriously! Get yourself registered. Think about other people who might want to join you as well, bring them along too.
Think about the project
At the beginning of September the challenges will appear on the website (and if you’re on the mailing list, in your inbox). Start thinking about projects and ideas. Check out other people’s ideas that will start appearing on Trello (link will be published mid-September), see how your skillset could help one of the teams or add your own idea.
On Monday 11th September we’re hosting a meeting all about ideation – how you go from a challenge or a problem to an idea. Come and hear from each of the sponsors, find out about their challenges, and then start the ideation process…
If you’ve not done a hackathon before check out this great article on dev.to: So, you’re new to hackathons. It’s where we got the idea for this post from!
