Computer Fun Hack
Remember when computers were less boring and more absurd? Come and hack.
Ok fine it’s happening. Fun Hack is an online hackathon in Summer 2021, where the goal is for attendees to have fun building silly things. This is not an opportunity to tweak your eslint configuration (unless you’re doing it for fun purposes), this is a chance to play and have fun with tech, learn with a supportive group of your fellow attendees, and share whatever ridiculous thing you build.
But why?
For fun! Computers used to be such fun. People build rube goldberg machines with arduinos in the O2 arena. We flew quadcopters with Javascript. We played Werewolf at 2am in so many corporate offices around the country. Now it’s all “code quality” and “don’t deploy on a friday” and “how many module systems can we support in our bundle” and “is there a bundler plugin that can optimize all our functions”. Now I’m not saying that doing code properly is a bad thing. What I am saying is that doing ridiculous stuff is really fun. So let's have some fun computer fun! And now we can do so from the comfort of our own homes - no more sleeping under desks in coworking spaces!
And how?
Together, with friends! Community was such an important part of the hackathons, and it’s going to be a crucial part of Fun Hack. We’re going to team up, work on hare-brained projects so crazy they just might be hilarious, learn from the experience, and share the results.
We’ll run the event primarily on our Discord server, where various channels will exist for chatting with other attendees, asking questions, and laughing at computers. There’ll be voice channels, teams can have channels of their own for collaboration, and scheduled group events will be broadcast in audio/video channels.
As for specific structure - while we will have specific events, please know that this event is about having fun. If you feel that it would be more fun to skip the opening talks and dive right into your wacky hack, go for it! If you have other commitments, feel free to work on your hack before (and after) the hackathon!
Sign Up
You can sign up to participate here. For us, signup means “click this signup button to join our Discord server, and if you opt in we’ll email you with updates and announcements on the event”. Your information will not feature on a CSV that gets given to recruiters or sign you up to marketing mailing lists from SAAS companies. You can unsubscribe or leave the Discord server at any time. Signing up is free, and you can participate without signing up if you prefer! Fun is for everyone.
Code of Conduct
This event is about fun, for all our attendees. We have fun with each other, not at each other's expense - only at the expense of computers doing silly things. Community spaces will be governed by the hack code of conduct, which will be strictly enforced. It is required that participants read and agree to the code of conduct, and adhere to it at all times. Please report any violations to the organizers - we promise to deal with them swiftly. If the notion of a code of conduct rubs you the wrong way, this event isn’t for you.
Schedule
Times in your local time zone
Saturday
| 10:00 | Opening Ceremony on Discord and Twitch |
| 11:00 | Talks - CFP Here |
| All Day | Teamfinding async and in voice on Discord |
| All Day | Hacking and having fun |
| 14:00 | Discussion Topic: What's the silliset thing you've done with a computer and how are you going to outdo yourself? |
| 16:00 | Games |
Sunday
| All Day | More hacking and fun-having! |
| 14:00 | Presentations |
| 16:00 | Category winner announcements |
Winners?
Having fun is winning! However, we hope to also have categories to enter, to help inspire your hacks. Will there be prizes? I don’t know yet, that’s not really the point, but if there are that’ll be a nice bonus. What are the prize categories? We have a few ideas, including “most entertaining misuse of a tech platform”, “oh wow I didn’t think a computer could do that”, and “excuse me you did what with a raspberry pi?”, “most artistically performed demo” - but we would love any suggestions you may have!
Sponsorship
Hi developer advocates, companies with fun APIs! Would you like to help make Fun Hack a big success? We could certainly do with some help, but bear in mind, if you’re looking for people to build useful products using your platform, or looking for sales leads, this event isn’t for you. We’re looking to help developers have a fun opportunity to enjoy playing with computers again. If that’s something you’d like your brand to be associated with, and you’d like to help us out by offering (low-stakes) fun prizes for categories such as ‘rube goldbergiest rube goldberg machine’ or ‘most unlikely musical instrument’, or you’d like to offer API usage discounts or swag, please get in touch and let’s have a chat.
Talks
We’d like to run some optional talks early on in the event. We expect stories about times computers have done silly things, pitches for why hacks should try out specific technology, fun “war stories” about bugs/incidents. If you have something you’d like to present, please fill out our CFP form!
Questions that haven't been asked yet but that we anticipate would be frequently asked if we hadn't already answered them
Emphatic yes. We aim for this to be a wonderful first-hackathon experience. We’ll have a dedicated channel for first-timers, where you’ll be able to ask questions, get support, and have help meeting other attendees.
No! The events have been scheduled to fit European time zones, and they’ll be recorded, so that if you live on the west coast of America and can’t make a 2am opening ceremony, you’ll be able to watch it back later on.
No! I certainly didn’t, and I had great fun - and I learned skills that I’ve been using in my career ever since. This is a great opportunity to play with tech you’re interested in learning more about.
Yes - but bear in mind that other attendees will be adult human beings having fun. While we expect all participants to be respectful of each other at all times, follow the code of conduct, and refrain from joking in a way that could make others have less fun (because we’re all about maximizing fun), there may be swears. There may be respectful jokes that might not be appropriate for children. If you’re underage, we would prefer for you to attend with a parent, guardian, or of-age friend.
Imagine a shitpost except it’s a computer program. Do that. We want to see your creativity! Get inspired by the talks. Check out the award categories for ideas. Do the code that you’d be embarrassed to submit for a PR at work, but in the back of your mind you think “but what if…”.
We hope to run a ‘how do I demo’ session during the hackathon, but the short answer is ‘however you like as long as it works over a video call’. You can share a prerecorded video, give a presentation, run us through your code, sing a song, anything you like! Remember, your audience is your fellow hackers who want to laugh about computers - not dragon’s den.
You can have fun with computers whenever you like! Please feel free to pre-hack. While there may be prizes, the emphasis at this event is on the fun, not on the competition. We’re hoping to record all presentations and talks in advance, so you can get to them whenever suits you. If there were a way to bend space time so that everyone could attend everything in real time, we would do it.
Maybe! If prospective sponsors reach out and would like to sponsor prizes categories, it’s not impossible that there could be prizes. But this isn’t the hackathon to try to win $10,000 with your startup idea. This is Computer Fun Hack, where we have fun! Prize categories won’t be adjudicated by judges - they will be voted on by participants. Please don’t hack the voting, if we feel that voting has been invalidated by scripting somehow, we’ll just skip the prize announcements.
No, please don’t. It’s just too depressing, even as a joke. It would just make me sad. You could come up with creative ways to make fun of blockchain/cryptocurrencies/nft without encouraging them!
I guess it would be a fun hack to see how many people we can fit in a Discord audio room. But no, there aren’t limited spaces, everyone is welcome.
No! Even if the event is over, share your fun hacks in the Discord channel.
What? Why are you asking us. This is a question for your lawyer, and the answer is no. Just do fun legal goofy computer fun stuff, friend!
Of course - but please do so responsibly - you will be in your own home (or wherever you choose to participate in the hack from), and responsible for your own physical safety. If you’re doing anything dangerous, take all reasonable precautions you can, and if you’re alone, consider having a video call open with someone you trust to know your address, and who knows how to call you an ambulance. But please err on the side of too much caution.
No!