By 2022, the novelty of "virtual hackathons" had worn off. Students suffered from Zoom fatigue. So, how did TMHacks22 differentiate itself?
Even though it was virtual, TMHacks22 nailed the swag experience. Participants who submitted a project received a digital "Hacker Pack" including stickers, discount codes for domain names (courtesy of .Tech Domains), and a physical hoodie shipped to their doorstep weeks later. The hashtag #tmhacks22hoodie trended on Discord for months. tmhacks22
TMHacks22 implemented a live mentorship queue system using Slack and Gather.town. Unlike other hackathons where mentors were passive, TMHacks22 mentors were scheduled in shifts, specializing in different tech stacks (React, Flask, Unity, Figma). First-time hackers could literally raise a "red flag" in the virtual space and have a senior developer walk them through Git conflicts at 2 AM. By 2022, the novelty of "virtual hackathons" had worn off