assemble

🥳 Fun, Fun & More Fun

A 42-hour hackathon with a 24-hour hackathon worth of time spent coding and the rest of the time spent having fun. That’s how @msw described Assemble to me. He’s right and that’s what I loved about Assemble. So as weird as it sounds, here’s how we made “fun” at Assemble.

DIY Fun

Early in Assemble’s planning stages, we had activities scheduled every hour throughout the day & night… but something didn’t feel right. It’s easy to fall into the trap of too many activities as an organiser. We changed course, however, because some of the most memorable moments are the moments created in the moment by attendees! This meant we stripped back on the activities, choosing to focus on a select few planned activities and focusing on create a great environment to have fun in. So, as we setup the venue we created spaces & laid out activities that attendees could use at anytime they wanted. For example, we setup a “Board Games Station” with a bunch of board games that attendees could take and play with friends.

A couple of other things we did:

• Allowed anyone to use the main projector (for example, to play Jackbox games)
• Opened up Figma’s conference rooms for attendees to hang out in and use the big screen (for example, to watch a movie)
• Setup a photo booth with stickers stuck on corkboard
• Setup a moodboard-style corkboard display
• Had a free flowing snacks & drinks bar

In the end it worked really well! Here’s an excerpt from Assembling Assemble in which I talk about how great this felt:

Another thing that was so wonderful was how Hack Clubbers really made the event their own. Especially on Saturday night where we had people running their own movie nights, Jackbox games and chair races to name a few things. At the opening ceremony I said “really you all will be the ones who make this event magical. be kind, be helpful. let’s make this the most incredibly weekend that’s happened this year”. That vision came to life, thanks to all the Hack Clubbers.

(impromptu midnight ice-cream!)

Freedom Waivers & Exploring SF

More than 50% of our attendees had flown into San Francisco, it’d be mean for us to lock them in an office and not let them see the city! So to allow participants to go explore the city we created the Freedom Waiver system. On our Event Liability Waiver, parents could choose to let there child leave the venue between 6AM & 10PM unsupervised to explore the city. This created some really special moments for attendees:

The (Un)Talent Show & Lightning Talks

Here’s how we described these two events to attendees:

First, the 🎤 (Un)Talent Show, where you can present or perform anything to your fellow hackers! It’ll be chill and informal, so there’s no pressure. Heck, show us what you’re incredibly bad at (ever seen Ishan shuffle a deck of cards? shudder) Feel free to bring any objects or props, and if you need anything we can help you acquire it!

Second, ⚡ Lightning Talks, where hackers give quick talks about intriguing things in rapid succession. Come up with some slides or present without them. We recommend keeping ‘em short short: about 2-3 minutes. Example ideas: “How bad is PHP?” & “Why pineapple deserves to be on pizza.” (56.5% of you agree according to your registrations).

Whilst implementation was slightly different between the two, the essential idea was the same: to bring together all the attendees and celebrate each other’s talents (or un-talents) & interests. To make these two events happen, we released a form for attendees to register interest, then worked with them to make their idea a reality & lastly, did a run-through/rehearsal with them over Zoom. On the day, all we had to do was invite them up on stage & they’d take the show away!

The CTF (w/ The Organization)

As our first of two midnight surprises, we took out the lights at Assemble & ran a CTF for participants turn them back on. You can read all about it in @bashbaugh’s write-up at hackclub/assemble-midnight-ctf.

Food Scavenger Hunt

In this section, @devenjadhav, our team’s resident cowboy, explains the Food Scavenger Hunt:

Dear hacker, welcome to the city by the bay.

San Francisco is one of the most beautiful cities I’ve ever been too. Everything from the food I ate, to the people I met was something I’d never forget for the rest of my life.

We knew that a lot of hackers at Assemble would be coming to San Francisco for the first time, and we wanted a way for everyone to explore the city and try some local food during the duration of the Hackathon, and we wanted to do that as safely as possible.

We decided to carve out some time for the Food Scavenger Hunt- a 2.5 hour activity on the second day during lunch. Every attendee was given a $15 stipend in cash, along with a letter that had a list of some amazing local restaurants (that Pranav suggested!) and a set of quests designed to make attendees get to know each other better.

(Hackers exploring SF during the Food Scavenger Hunt)

The total cash withdrawn for Assemble was about $2,625, in specific denominations of $5 and $10. Usually, banks have to be informed beforehand if a large number of bills are needed, especially for smaller denominations.

We also needed to make sure that everyone who’s leaving the venue unsupervised had permission to do so from their parent/guardian (through the freedom waiver). HQ staff members led supervised groups for hackers who didn’t have a freedom waivers on file.

A minor inconvenience here was the way these quests were evaluated. We could’ve better integrated the Scavenger Hunt with the slack, since the evaluation setup involved Kara, Hugo and I manning a desk flooded with attendees trying to get their quests evaluated.

The Food Scavenger Hunt really bought the hackathon back to life, and everyone seemed super energized for the next couple hours! A lot of hackers completed all the quests in the letter (one such quest involved running to the centre of the office, pounding your chest like a gorilla, and screaming “I’m an Animal”)

https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/39828164/189797683-610faa1c-df4b-4400-b2ba-6b05a6435d00.MOV

(“I’m an Animal” x 3)

Disco (w/ Lux)

Everyone loves music, what’s even better is Hack Clubber-made music! @Lux, Hack Clubber in CA, put together a synthwave set and performed it live at Assemble in front of everyone. Words can’t describe how special it was.

https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/39828164/187209505-c2765589-a83f-436a-b92e-029f47196037.MOV

I would 100% recommend a music-related side activity. Music brings everyone together & is something that almost every can enjoy.

(Lux preparing their set at the event!)