That's a great point about having a winner not being all it's cracked up to be. Having to show something is enough motivation for me. Also sponsors often take

That's a great point about having a winner not being all it's cracked up to be. Having to show something is enough motivation for me. Also sponsors often take away as much from hackathons as they put into them. I'd love an API hack day where all API's including open protocols were on equal footing. At the API Hack Day I went to there were actually prizes for using the sponsors' APIs.