Merge pull request #57 from vishyyyyyyyyy/24-hours-at-hackutd-my-first-hackathon

24-hours-at-hackutd-my-first-hackathon.mdx

Author: sonnynomnom

blogs/2025/24-hours-at-hackutd-my-first-hackathon.mdx

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+---
+title: "24 Hours at HackUTD: My First Hackathon"
+description: "In this blog post, Vishalya will take you behind the scenes of her very first hackathon! Sharing the wild, sleepless, unforgettable experience of 24 hours at HackUTD, North America’s largest 24-hour university hackathon.”
+author: Vishalya Sairam
+seoImageLink: https://i.imgur.com/J5AV50N.png
+dateCreated: 2025-11-13
+published: false
+uid: 
+tags:
+  - Community
+  - Resources
+---
+
+
+
+## 24 Hours at HackUTD: My First Hackathon
+
+
+It’s 4 AM. Most people are asleep, but here I am, watching the [League Championship Finals](https://www.youtube.com/live/ADaZLxI3uWg?si=9dXQDI72PaOz_1bw) in a room with my teammates while trying to code our hackathon project that might not even work. Welcome to my first hackathon.
+
+Hi, I’m Vishalya, aka [@vishyyyyyyyyy](https://www.codedex.io/@vishyyyyyyyyy), a freshman studying Computer Engineering at the University of Texas at Dallas. This past weekend, I attended my very first hackathon, [HackUTD](https://hackutd.co), the largest 24 hour hackathon in North America! 😲
+
+In this blog, I’ll walk you through the wild, sleepless, and unforgettable experiences of my very first hackathon. ✨
+
+## Initial expectations
+
+Before the hackathon even began, I was nervous. I didn’t know who my teammates were since we formed a random group on HackUTD’s Discord. On top of that, I was worried if we could actually submit a project in just 24 hours.
+
+## The Hackathon Chaos Starts
+
+### 8:00 AM
+
+As soon as I arrived on campus there was already a 300 person line. After waiting for what felt like an eternity, I was checked in and snagged some freebies to start the day! 🎉 I spent some time exploring the sponsor fair, networking and chatting with company employees, while also collecting even more freebies. 😉
+
+### 10:00 AM
+
+I finally met my team! After some slightly awkward introductions, I realized I really liked them and was excited to work with them. We started making our way to the opening ceremony and got seated in an auditorium. Right before the program was about to start, the fire alarm went off and we had to evacuate. 😂
+
+After that got settled, we walked back into the auditorium and got to watch a fun skit introducing this year’s theme. Next, [Sonny Li](https://www.codedex.io/@sonny) (yes, Codédex’s very own founder!!) gave a keynote speech at the hackathon, followed by sponsors announcing their challenge statements and prizes.
+
+### 12:45 PM
+
+It was time to start hacking! Our team ventured around buildings trying to find an open space, which took a while. We settled down on the 4th floor of the Engineering Computer Science South building and started ideating and researching for our project. 💭
+
+We decided to take on the Toyota Financial Services challenge and create [ToyoQuest 🚗](https://devpost.com/software/toyoquest-fdtxsb), a website that helps first-time car owners find their dream car. Soon after, lunch time came! I ate tofu kua gai flat noodles 😋 and they were giving out the cutest t-shirts and trinket dishes out too. 🥹
+
+### 3:30 PM
+
+Visited the Codédex booth table! I was super excited to talk to the team in person! 
+
+Sonny and I chatted about writing a blog as part of my prize for winning the [October Portfolio Monthly Challenge](https://www.codedex.io/community/monthly-challenge/rxszczV44NOqXn80BC7Y), so here I am writing about my very first hackathon! ☺️📝
+
+### 4:40 PM
+
+I attended State Farm’s “AI, APIs, and the Future of Building Fast” workshop and learned how to use JavaScript to build an AI and utilize API for a fullstack project. During this session, our team continued working on our project and created a database of all the Toyota cars and got started designing BuzzFeed style questionnaire pages in Figma.
+
+### 7:30 PM
+
+Dinner time! 🍝 
+
+I grabbed pasta while attending a networking workshop. They also handed out neck pillows, perfect for those who were already dozing off. 😴 Halfway through the workshop, I noticed my computer was displaying “❗Error. USB device not recognized❗” on my screen even though I didn’t have anything connected to my computer…
+
+Turns out, my pasta had leaked in my bag into the computer ports. 🥲 I tried my best to clean it as best as I could and prayed it would still work.
+
+### 11:30 PM
+
+The event organizers handed out a midnight snack to keep us fueled! Tiramisu and cute freebie shot glasses. My team took a quick break by attending a fun destressor event, HackUTD Olympics, where we played soccer, toss the ring, and tested our quick math skills. We ended up in last place but still had fun nonetheless!
+
+![hackathon day 1](https://i.imgur.com/gwJbFOt.png)
+
+### 12:30 AM
+
+We then went to [League of Legends World’s Watch Party!]((https://www.youtube.com/live/ADaZLxI3uWg?si=9dXQDI72PaOz_1bw) About 10 of us were seated in a dark room watching the game play on a large screen and intensely working on projects until 5 AM. I focused on the front end of our website, using TypeScript and Next.js, and every now and then, I peeked over to see my backend teammate frantically running out of Claude AI credits. He even spent $20 just to get Claude to process and format our Toyota Cars CSV file. 🤣
+
+### 9:30 AM
+
+Our team was hard at work finishing up our devpost submission, Canva presentation slides, and our actual website itself, which was still missing the main features: using Gemini API to process the user input from the front end and send data to our backend to finalize car selections from a user’s financials and life style choices. 😬 
+
+At least we were enjoying puff pastries for breakfast. 
+
+### 11:30 AM
+
+Mostly everything was done, we just had to link the front end to the back end and figure out how to display results generated for a user... in UNDER 30 MINUTES. We created multiple help tickets with the HackUTD mentors to figure out how to fix our project and submitted our project one minute before the deadline. 😓
+
+### 12:00 PM
+
+We winded with a salad for lunch and practiced presenting for the judging panel. I was so relieved that we finished our project and proud of how much progress we made in the last 24 hours. 😮‍💨
+
+### 1:00 PM
+
+Judging starts. 
+
+Despite our exhaustion, we made sure to deliver a well prepared presentation for the judges. We explained that our app uses a Python webscraper to collect Toyota car trims and then finds the top three Toyota cars based on user selection. Afterwards, I checked out and explored other team’s projects and loved seeing their ideas and creativity!
+
+### 5:00 PM
+
+We moved back to the auditorium to hear closing remarks and most importantly, who won! Our team didn’t place, but it was so cool to see the winning projects. The organizers had one last surprise for us before we left... the cutest embroidered sweatshirts!! 💗
+
+
+![hackathon day 2](https://i.imgur.com/HOnNUUa.png)
+
+
+
+## Key Takeaways
+
+Looking back, my first hackathon was amazing! I was really intimidated at first by big tech events that seem to be for “real” or “experienced” programmers but that quickly changed once I met my amazing, hardworking team. We became great friends and bonded over our shared passion for building a website and had a blast attending fun events, not to mention receiving so many goodies to keep us going through a sleepless night. 🪫💪
+
+I realized you don’t need to be an expert to make an impact. All it takes is a team with an idea, willingness to learn new things, and the motivation to bring it to life. Hackathons aren’t just about winning and building the most advanced project, they’re about pushing yourself to learn new things, work under pressure, building something that you’re proud of, all while having fun. 😆
+
+Anyway, looking forward to my next hackathon adventure! Feel free to reach out if you have any questions! :)
+
+## Want to attend your first hackathon?
+
+Check out [Gabby’s](https://www.codedex.io/@gabtot) hackathon survival guide below!
+
+👉 [Codédex | Hackathon Survival Guide 2025](https://www.codedex.io/blog/hackathon-survival-guide)
+