A Hackathon Methodology for Undergraduate Course Projects

In this innovative practice full paper we present a methodology for organizing a hackathon as a learning instrument within the scope of an undergraduate course. Hackathons are short events (1 to 3 days), where participants motivated by a common challenge gather into groups to build a software or hardware prototype. Studies show that learning is one of the main motivators of hackathon participants. Researchers are also pointing out the importance of hackathons as an informal learning approach for college students. The acquisition of knowledge comes as a result of the practice itself and with participants learning from one another. This motivated us to bring that practice to the classroom, by offering an undergraduate course where students develop their semester project within a hackathon. In an attempt to systematize the steps, compress and optimize the time allocated for the ideation phase of hackathon projects, we propose a methodology for hackathons in an educational setting. The approach combines concepts from Challenge-based Learning and Design Thinking in a sequence of activities that streamlines the ideation process with regular deliveries in short time frames. This results in objective discussions and quick decision taking, fastly arriving at a project idea where students apply what they learned over the semester. We applied our approach in an Internet of Things undergraduate course within the scope of a semester project developed in an authentic 24-hour hackathon that took place in a maker space. This article details the methodology and presents a mixed methods study to analyze the students' perception on using this set of practices and techniques.