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Why shouldn't teams do what Upshot did and develop the cool tech beforehand and polish it during the Hackathon They should: If you know what you're building, a

Why shouldn't teams do what Upshot did and develop the cool tech beforehand and polish it during the Hackathon They should: If you know what you're building, and the prize is enough motivation, of course you should do everything you possibly can in advance, and any rules that tried to prohibit that would essentially be crippling only the naively honest. Even if there were keystroke and screen loggers and you had to "show your work", a prepared team would have gone through the process multiple times, completely refining their work to the point of rote re-implementation of version 10 of a proven out implementation. This may sound cynical, but it is truthful. Which is exactly why most such competitions simply announce the goal and an end date in the future, and people grind as they see fit.

utopkara 13y ago
Their rules were just too complex yet weak and ambiguous. If they want to level the field, a simple fix would be: make all previously written code available to others at least one week prior to the Hackathlon, everything else is kosher.
rhizome 13y ago
a prepared team would have gone through the process multiple times, completely refining their work to the point of rote re-implementation of version 10 of a proven out implementation. What is this referring to? Has this ever actually occurred?
- corresation 13y ago
  It's referring to human nature. If you tell people there is a million dollar prize at stake (and to add to the financial stakes, charge hundreds per contestant), and details of the problem they will be solving, 100% of your contestants will try to solve as much of the problem as they can in advance (while, most likely, declaring it a crime that anyone else did so). Anyone who claims otherwise is the sort of person you should protect your wallet around. It is impossible to guard against this.
  - melvinmt 13y ago
    How can you work in advance if the hackathon isn't announced yet?
    - SilasX 13y ago
      Because the "prompt" (basically, make a cool app) was revealed a long time before the hackathon, which IMHO was a big mistake. It's much easier to prevent such cheating if you make the early work irrelevant.
  - rhizome 13y ago
    It's not human nature, because I'm basically asking examples of a software project or application that has been rewritten to the point of rote reimplementation.

utopkara 13y ago

Their rules were just too complex yet weak and ambiguous. If they want to level the field, a simple fix would be: make all previously written code available to others at least one week prior to the Hackathlon, everything else is kosher.

rhizome 13y ago

a prepared team would have gone through the process multiple times, completely refining their work to the point of rote re-implementation of version 10 of a proven out implementation. What is this referring to? Has this ever actually occurred?

corresation 13y ago
It's referring to human nature. If you tell people there is a million dollar prize at stake (and to add to the financial stakes, charge hundreds per contestant), and details of the problem they will be solving, 100% of your contestants will try to solve as much of the problem as they can in advance (while, most likely, declaring it a crime that anyone else did so). Anyone who claims otherwise is the sort of person you should protect your wallet around. It is impossible to guard against this.
- melvinmt 13y ago
  How can you work in advance if the hackathon isn't announced yet?
  - SilasX 13y ago
    Because the "prompt" (basically, make a cool app) was revealed a long time before the hackathon, which IMHO was a big mistake. It's much easier to prevent such cheating if you make the early work irrelevant.
- rhizome 13y ago
  It's not human nature, because I'm basically asking examples of a software project or application that has been rewritten to the point of rote reimplementation.