How I Won My First 3 Hackathons as a Beginner
I'm 17 years old and currently studying for my A-levels in college (sixth form, the last two years of high school in most countries). Participating in hackathons wasn't originally part of my goals this year, but I decided to give it a shot—and surprisingly, I won all three hackathons I entered!
Hackathons are a great opportunity to showcase your skills and build innovative projects. Here's how I approached them and the key lessons I learned.
The Winning Formula
During my first online hackathon at Nosu, I reached out to a group of people to form a team. A 33x hackathon winner, Bill Zhang, gave me this advice:
To win a hackathon, you need three things: an impressive use case, an impressive demo, and a compelling pitch.
These three factors became my guiding principles throughout each hackathon.
Tools That Helped Me Win
1. Demo Videos: Show, Don’t Just Tell
A GitHub README rarely stands out, but a well-made demo video does! Judges have to review tons of projects, and a compelling video serves as a powerful visual reminder of your work.
Tools for Demo Videos:
- Screen Studio (Mac only) – High-quality, easy-to-edit screen recordings.
- CanVid (Windows users) – A solid alternative for recording and editing demos.
2. AI-Powered Coding Assistance
At hackathons, we don’t have endless hours to perfect code. AI-assisted tools save time and help us focus on solving real problems.
Cursor is an AI-powered coding assistant that reads your codebase, suggests real-time solutions to errors, and even generates code. Super efficient!
3. Rapid UI Development with Component Libraries
Beautiful UI matters, and component libraries help you build stunning frontends quickly.
- ShadCN UI – The best choice, seamlessly integrates with Vercel, built with Tailwind CSS.
- Magic UI – Provides pre-built animations and effects.
- Tailwind CSS – Essential for customizing and styling components quickly.
4. Instant Authentication with Clerk
Clerk makes user authentication effortless, so you don’t have to spend hours configuring auth or dealing with API headaches.
5. AI Integrations to Enhance Your Project
Adding AI features to your project can make it stand out. Some great APIs to explore:
- OpenAI – Integrate AI-powered chat, summarization, and more.
- Anthropic AI – AI models for various applications.
6. Idea Generation with Nosu
Stuck on an idea? Nosu has a tool that generates hackathon project ideas based on your tech stack, hackathon theme, and track description. It pulls insights from past winning projects to give you a competitive edge.
Final Thoughts
Winning three hackathons as a beginner was an incredible experience. The key takeaways? Build something innovative, create a compelling demo, and use the right tools to maximize efficiency. If you're thinking about joining a hackathon—go for it! You never know what you might achieve.