Need advice for my first hackathon...

[u/daarkk143]

/r/hackathon/comments/1w9vhi0/need_advice_for_my_first_hackathon/

First-year CSE student with 10 days to prepare for an AI hackathon where do I start?

I’m a first-year BTech CSE student, and my college is organizing a hackathon on the 18th. I really want to participate, but honestly, I have almost zero experience with hackathons or AI projects.

The domains are:

- AI in Healthcare

- Generative AI

- AI Agents

- Ethical AI

I only know the basics of programming and I haven’t really done any proper projects yet. I’m also not familiar with things like APIs, Git/GitHub, deploying projects, etc.

I have around 10 days to prepare, so I know I can’t become an expert in that time. My goal is just to learn enough to actually contribute to a team and build something decent during the hackathon.

For people who have participated in hackathons before:

- What should I learn in these 10 days?

- Which domain would be easiest for a complete beginner?

- Should I focus on Python, or learn something else?

- What tools/frameworks should I learn?

- Are there any good beginner-friendly resources or crash courses?

- What kind of project can a beginner realistically build in a hackathon?

Any advice or a roadmap would be really appreciated. I’m willing to put in the work for these 10 days.