MY ROLE

  • UX design
  • Event planning

SOFTWARE + SKILLS

  • Microsoft Excel
  • Google Sheets
  • Eventbrite
  • Sponsorship outreach
  • Event flow management

Team

  • Perry Ting
  • Charmaine Farber
  • Jacob Johannesen
  • Alyssa Wigant
  • Jacqui Luis
  • Tavin Boynton
  • Taya Arnone
  • Jamie Chin

Context

Prior to Camp PolyHacks, Cal Poly SLO's hackathon scene was dry and unapproachable for the inexperienced. Charmaine Farber, a Graphic Communication professor at the school, pulled together a team of students to breathe new life into the existing hackathon on campus, Design and Dev Hackathon.

Objectives

  1. To coordinate all aspects of event planning, including flow and set-up
  2. To decide and document on overall "experience" of event
  3. To arrange venue logistics, including transportation of over 100 students

Mission Statement

Our team's goal was to create a competitive hackathon that is still distinctly Cal Poly SLO by:

  1. concentrating on "social entrepreneurship", the idea of helping social causes through making a business
  2. making the hackathon more "music festival" than professional conference (making the event more casual and stress-free than your typical hackathon)

Thus, we went ahead and formed Cal Poly's first Social Entrepreneurship Hackathon, with an emphasis on making the environment approachable and friendly for all levels of hacking. Camp PolyHacks was completely created for students, by students.

My Job

I was assigned to be a co-director of Event and User Experience design, alongside Jacqui Luis. Our main jobs were to make sure the event not only make sure the event runs smoothly, but that Camp PolyHacks turns to be an incredible experience.

  • coordinate all aspects of event planning including flow of event and set-up
  • decide on the "musical festival" experience of the event; transportation
  • work with Creative, Volunteer, and Mentor Directors
  • act as documentarian for all future events

Our careful planning and constant alertness during the hackathon helped Cal Poly's first social entrepreneurship hackathon set a very high bar for any future hackathons at Cal Poly. To ensure we can learn from this experience, I documented our whole design process for future reference.

Experience it

Watch our recap video for our first iteration of Camp PolyHacks, or check out the website for our most recent event!

Takeaways

Our goal of making a hackathon more casual and stress-free than your typical hackathon was a success. It was easier to approach and enjoy onself for absolute beginners and more confident hackers alike.

Documenting how the event eventually panned out was a completely improvisational move on my part, but ended being beneficial as I continued on to work on Camp PolyHacks again for the next two years. Being able to refer back to my own notes and learn from Camp PolyHack's successes and failures creates an easier experience for the director team as a whole.