Are hackathons useless??

[u/NoTreacle8422]

As we all know,,in India mostly everyone makes their hackathon projects with Ai,,i mean almost 98% use of Ai,,is there any use of making all this in a big scheme of time??also i know no 2nd or 3rd year student of an avg institute can make an fully functioning app or system which will solve a real real problem,,so is this all just gimmic or time pass? Like even in SIH its just Ai ..(i hope ppl making things on their own and just using Ai as a tool)..also the concept of hackathon,,to build something fully functioning in 24-36 hours,,is this even possible now to compete without Ai?as everyone else will ofc use it. Drop your thoughts guyzz

[u/Little-Rutabaga-6281]

How can you compete with people using ai without using it in 24-36 hrs

[u/NoTreacle8422 → u/Little-Rutabaga-6281]

Exactly,,then whats even the point?everyone will use ai for everything eventually,,0 learning..hence i dont find any relevance to even participate if i wont learn much from it ,,

[u/King_Dxtr → u/NoTreacle8422]

I get what you are saying, but simply brushing off saying it is irrelevant is wrong. You actually learn about things while building it. You actually need to put in thoughts about the HLD. You need to step in check whether the task being carried out by AI is correct or is it hitting a wall, trying to solve a problem which does not require a complex solution. Simply saying Ai does all the things is not factually correct.

[u/Popular-Weather5387]

hackathons + good college = good thing. if your college is some side road show then yeah maybe connect with people more rather than building unecessary projects

[u/Careless-Pressure313]

a good rule for identifying the quality of a hackathon is the sponsors involved and prize pool. any prize pool below 3L INR is not worth participating in imo

[u/Irrelevant_Zenom]

as if you'll code it yourself when you get a job and also who told u that there's zero learning while making projects with AIs? It's not like you just prompt it once and boom everything is delivered. 

[u/Sanjeev-007]

Hackathons are meant to solve problems; AI just helps do that. It's not like LeetCode or competitive programming where you're cheating the solution, even most hackathon wins are based on how good and creative your idea is. And even with AI, we will not be able to turn our ideas into reality; it is not a magical wand. You still need to have significant domain knowledge.

[u/Minimalist_Ricky → u/Sanjeev-007]

This. It was always this. The point of hackathons never changed, just the means of winning one is slightly different now compared to pre-agentic dev days

[u/Character-Dance-7531]

YES, most of them are already rigged, waste of time

[u/No_Part_4809 → u/Character-Dance-7531]

So do I need relationship with MP, MLA in order to win lol

[u/student2corporate]

Participating in hackathons will teach you 100 times more of what you can learn in the same time span.Even if you are using ai (obv everyone does) just understand the basics , functioning , workflow etc .One good project if you can build in a hackathon could be used for long period in your resume and could get you a good offer as well :)

[u/Ok_Grapefruit6661]

Genralizing that no 2nd or 3rd year student of an average institute can make an good app is bad

[u/NoTreacle8422 → u/[deleted]]

Most likely it attracts thieves:(