Hack U is a 24-hour hackathon where teams of up to 4 people build hacks using Yahoo! APIs and open source technologies. Participants brainstorm ideas, code their projects, and present their hacks at the end to win prizes. Yahoo! provides many free and open source projects and APIs that hackers can use to build their hacks, such as YUI, YQL, Flickr, and more. The document gives advice on hacking and demo strategies to help participants develop strong hacks.

1. Welcome to Hack U

2. Show off your hacks

3. Hack judges

4. Hack T-Shirts

5. What’s our vector, Victor? Hack for 24hrs Break for food, sugar, caffeine, and conversations Present your hack Win! Sleep like a victorious baby

6. Nitty gritty Up to 4 people on a team 24hr coding period IP & Code - you own it Register your hacks: developer.yahoo.com/hacku Log into Yahoo! to edit your hacks later Campus-specific details on the Hack U site: http://developer.yahoo.com/hacku/

7. So, who is this “Hacker”?

9. A hack is a good idea brought to life

10. And good ideas come from … Noticing something broken and thinking of a fix Building something you’d use yourself Automating something you’re too busy to do manually Finding a place where the world sucks and figuring out how to make it better Paying attention to local trends: mobile, video, social, local, geo, gams, etc.

11. A winning hack: InsiderTrades insidertrades.org What’s good about it? Simple and good idea Unique Clean implementation Free or open-source tech: PHP, HTML/CSS, cron, MySQL, YQL

12. Hacking Strategies Brainstorm, but converge quickly, and keep the best details of the rejected ideas handy Scope the work so the end is in sight: set an easy goal, and an ambitious one. Divide work by team member strengths. Ask for help! Minimize the amount of work by using free and open source tech. Don’t forget to Ctrl+S!

13. Demo Strategies “ I swear it was just working...” - have a Plan B (screenshots, video, etc.) No static slides - leave PowerPoint for marketing. Practice your pitch a few times; make it easy on the ears, concise and funny. Make a bang: demo what’s most exciting and cool about your project. Tell us how you’d like the project to grow.

14. Surely Yahoo! can help Of course (but don’t call us Shirley) Yahoo! free and open source projects YUI YQL APIS: Flickr, Answers, del.icio.us, Fantasy Sports, Fire Eagle, GeoPlanet, Placefinder, Placemaker … developer.yahoo.com

15. Roger that, Roger? (translation: any questions?)