Marathon by Hack Kosice

Each challenge has two parts - open and closed part. The closed part is an algorithmic task that has an objectively correct answer (there is just one) and the sooner you solve the task, the better – there are points for speed! You can solve it anyhow you want and you any programming language you want. The open part is something you can interpret yourself (you need to be creative). This part requires more time but it’s more personal at once. It is possible to finish the open and closed part separately (recommended if you want more points for speed in closed part).

Example (closed part): Einstein’s riddle.

Example (open part): make an application that chooses what to wear in the morning.

Challenges will be announced every other Monday on both our social media and Discord between 8:00 and 8:30 (timezone GTM+2/CEST). Then you have time until midnight the next Friday CEST (12 days) to complete the challenge and submit your solution via Discord (using our Bot commands). Our judges will give points to each project and you will be awarded kilometres. You can always see your results in a public leaderboard placed on our webpage and social media, it will be updated every other Sunday after the submission deadline.

There is a special category – public voting – with every open part of the challenge, 5 best projects will compete of our swag – the projects will be announced on our Facebook page in one post and within 24 hours, people will be able to vote via reactions for the best one every other Sunday 8am-8pm. The more you share the post, the more reactions you get. At 9pm we will share the updated leaderboard and results of public voting. We will announce the sponsors’ winner of each challenge during the week.

No, you don’t. You can take part individually or with a team consisting of no more than 3 people. If you want a team but don’t have one, you can find someone in a similar situation on our Discord. But don’t worry to compete alone, we have prepared many side events to make sure that everybody will feel as comfortable as possible. As a bonus, if you compete alone you don’t have to split the prizes 😉

You can win prizes every other week for each challenge separately. These prizes are given by our sponsors (vouchers, Android TV box, AirPods). In public voting you can win our Hack Kosice swag. By collecting kilometres and getting on the top of the public leaderboard – you can become the absolute winner and get the 1000€ prize and two runners up get other valuable prizes (see in the list of challenges above).

Absolutely YES. Hack Kosice marathon is a place where you can improve your skills regardless of your current level of experience. However, if you are not keen on programming, we recommend you to create or join a team. That way it will be easier for you.

Our Marathon is a great opportunity to learn new skills, boost you CV (you can also get hired by our sponsors and partners), join a supportive community and have fun during this pandemics. Just to remind you, we have amazing prizes for you each two weeks (each challenge) and the main prize - 1000€.

Challenges are one thing, but side events and activities are another thing. This year we decided to use Discord as a main platform to create the Marathon community. Our Discord community can provide support even if you’re the only person in a team. (If you’re looking for a teammate, you can find one on our Discord as well.)

Examples of our Marathon Discord activities: Hack Talks to interesting topics related to Marathon content, workshops and warm ups to help you with the challenges, mentoring from our Hack Slovakia members (if you get stuck), social events and ice-breakers (to help you make new friends internationally), HK Marathon workouts because we are running a marathon and we need to stay fit (it’s actually real workouts). The entire schedule will be posted on our website and social media.

10 weeks may sound like long time, but the truth is that you don’t need to hack for 10 weeks straight. We decided for this format so that you are able to find time in your own schedule to complete each challenge whenever in two weeks period. During these 10 weeks you will experience many side events and different activities as well. To sum up, even the busiest person can manage to find some time for Marathon challenges. Also keep in mind that you don’t have to complete each challenge to win something.