Just before Christmas, during Project Celebrations and the Christmas party, the idea arose. Amidst catching up, laughing, and looking ahead, the thought suddenly struck: "We've actually never done a hackathon before. Why not?"
The idea was pitched on the spot to a few colleagues, and enthusiasm was immediate. Shortly after, it was officially announced. The energy? It was there immediately.
The goal: to create something cool together
The goal of the hackathon was actually very simple:
Building something together one evening after work. Freedom in what we create, freedom in how we approach it. As long as it's fun.
No pressure, no deadline. Just creativity, code, pizza, drinks, and music. And if something good comes out of it? Bonus! 😉
One team… or two?
The original idea was for everyone to work on a single assignment, just to see how that would go during a first edition.
But after discussion, it turned out that not one, but two strong ideas were at the top. And the majority indicated they preferred working in smaller groups.
So we split into two teams of six. It was a democratic decision, and ultimately a good one.
What did we want to achieve?
The goal for the evening:
A working Proof of Concept (PoC).Something that is at least demonstrable.
At the end each group had to be able to show:
- What they built
- How it works
- And what further implementation could look like
No half measures, but a testable result.
And the end result?
Ultimately, two final products were built:
1. An online retrospective tool
A tool that allows multiple people to participate in a retro at the same time.
Send cards, drag and drop, keep an overview, all in a sleek design.
2. An online documentation application
An environment where customers can read all about how their Filament website works.
Including an AI functionality that allows them to ask questions about their own website.
For both concepts, more was conceived than there was time to build. And perhaps that's the best sign of its potential.
Will this be continued?
Absolute.
The enthusiasm was palpable. By the end of the evening, several people commented on how much fun it had been to work together like this. The initiative was also enthusiastically received from the top down, clearly leaving them wanting more.
For now, we don't see any major areas for improvement, but we will continue to gather feedback from participants in the near future.
One thing is certain: this first edition was a success.
And the next one? It's coming.
Van Ons is a digital agency from Amsterdam. Simply put, we are website builders and we help you with web design en web developmentWe do this with open source software and we are specialists in Laravel and often use Filament.