Hackathon timetable

The full schedule is available here.

Before Dec 12 Get ready! Collect ideas Thursday (Dec 12) 9:00 - 9:30 Pitching ideas 9:30 - 10:00 Team Formation 10:00 - 23:30 Hackathon! (day 1)

Friday (Dec 13) 9:00 - 13:30 Hackathon! (day 2) 13:30 - 14:30 Prepares presentation 15:00 - 17:00 Presentations! 17:00 - 18:00 Judges discuss in private 17:00 - 18:00 Participants vote their favorite project 18:00 Awards!

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Before starting

Things to do before the hackathon

Check the preparation & installation document note for things to do before the hackathon.

I have an idea for the hackathon

Open an issue in this repo (using the new project template) and explain your idea in some paragraphs.

All the proposed projects should make use of some part of Qiskit (including the backends). They can also extend Qiskit or analyze it in some way. Take a look to projects from previous camps/hackathons for inspiration.

Time for pitching the idea

Before the hackathon starts, the first thing to be done on the first day is to pitch all the ideas registered here. The pitch is a 60-second-long exposition by the original submitter of the idea. Make sure that you mention, at least, these three elements: team number, the problem to solve, the kind of people you need in your team. The goal is to recruit participant behind your idea. If your idea does not get critical mass, it will be discarded for this hackathon.

Team formation

I would like to participate in an existing idea

Participants and coaches can comment and add information as comments in the ideas (as issue comments). After the pitches, there is time for team formation. Find the person behind the idea (feel free to slack them) and ask for more. Once you are convinced, add a comment in the issue mentioning @qcamp (our helpful bot). After some seconds, you will be assigned to the issue. Being assigned to the issue means being part of the team.

I am already in a team, but I want to change

If a participant is assigned to team and she changes her mind, she has to unassigned herself from the current team and post a comment mentioning @qcamp in the new team. A participant cannot be assigned to more than one open team at any time.

None of the existing ideas is suitable for me :(

If any of the proposed ideas is suitable for you, considering submitting your own idea. Maybe, you feel that the full thing is over your head, considering joining the Good First Issues team. You want be participating of the competition, but you will contribute and learn a lot!

My team is not reaching the minimum amount of members

If during the team formation stage your team is not gaining traction (has two or less members) it will be considerate as a candidate to be closed. It will be labeled as such and that will serve as some sort of "last call" to encourage its members to find more participants interested in the idea. After some undefined amount of time, it will be closed and its members are free to find new teams.

My team is complete

Once a team reaches 5 members, the issue is labeled as group is full. Since 5 is a hard limit, the team cannot have more members. If you see that there is more people interested, consider opening a new team as a spin off and forward the participants to this new issue.

The hacking part of the hackathon

My team is ready. Let's hack!

After the project is defined and the team is complete, you can ask an IBMer in the channel #qiskit-camp-africa (qiskit.slack.com) to add the label group ready. This should happen before the group formation stage is finished. From this point on, you can use the issue to communicate progress as additional comments.

The team needs a coach

A Qiskit coach guides and advices the team in its project. Also will be your contact point after the hackathon, in case that the project have a continuation. Your team will get a coach assigned during the first hours of the hackathon, the first day. A team might have more than one coach, but at least one coach.

It's presentation time!

After the hackathon finishes, the team will have extra time (around 1 hour) to prepare for a 3-minute-long presentation. This article has good advices that coaches and judges have been collecting during the past camp editions. Make sure you are following those guidelines!

It's awards time!

After the presentations, the 3 judges will have an hour for deliberating the hackathon winners. There is a 1st and a 2nd prize winners, which will be evaluated on:

1. Originality and Uniqueness
2. Live Pitch Presentation
3. Usefulness
4. Technical complexity.

The 1st place winners will receive a paid trip to the annual flagship Qiskit Camp event near Yorktown Heights, NY.

Also during this time all the participant will vote for the community choice award. Instructions on how to vote will be provided after the presentations.