In just a few short days coders from coast to coast to coast will be jumping into a scramble of coding, drawing interfaces and drooping eyelids. While showing up with an open and creative mindset is the most important, preparing a bit ahead of time can make a big difference.

The basic first steps to prepare for your CODE weekend are registration, profile and team creation as well as deciding how to compete: either from a CODE VIP HUB, Partner HUB or virtually from anywhere in Canada.

Step 1: The Basics

Register:
Go to canadianopendataexperience.ca/register and sign up using Facebook, Google+ or email.

Complete your profile:
Go to canadianopendataexperience.ca/account/edit/. Here you can write a description about yourself and what you hope to get out of this competition. You can also change your profile pic, create a team, and fill out your skill set. Potential team members, judges and fans will be looking at your profile so be sure to present yourself the best way you can.

Create or find a team:
Everyone participating in CODE is required to be part of team. If you plan on competing on your own, simply create a one-person team.

If you are looking for people to join your team, you can use our matchmaking tool to find people with the skills you are looking for and recruit them right through our website. For more information please check out our Matchmaking How To Video.

If you are looking to lend your skills to an existing team, while logged in, go to the Teams page. Browse through all the teams and see what they are about and who they are looking for. If you find a team you’d like to join, simply click the “Request to Join” button and a request will be sent to the team leader.

Where to compete:
There are three CODE VIP HUBs located in Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver. One hundred specially selected participants will compete from each of these locations. Participating from a VIP HUB will make your hackathon experience extra special! You get to hangout with colleagues and peers, grab some cool CODE SWAG (hoodies, coffee mugs and more!) and chomp through mountains of delicious food (all on us!) while building the next big open data app. If you are interested in participating from a VIP HUB, please apply.

But I don’t live near a VIP HUB!
Not a problem! We have partnered up with some awesome institutions and organizations to provide Partner HUBs all across Canada. Check out our HUBs page! Here you can browse all the HUBs or enter your postal code to find the HUB nearest to you. Once you have found a HUB that works for you, simply apply.

But I do my best work at home!
No worries! We understand that some people prefer the comfort of their own home when creating the next big thing. Our website gives you all the tools you need to participate “virtually”.

Step 2: The Prep Work

After having registered, completed your profile and set up a team, continue with some brain-preparation!

Head over to the CODE Resource section and FAQ to find all the answers to your questions and a plethora of resources to help you prepare for the event.

Continue by visiting the CODE Judging page and learn about the criteria that will determine the Top 15. Understanding how your submission will be judged will help you make the best decision for your app.

Get familiar with Canada’s Open Government portal. There are more than 200,000 federal datasets to choose from and going though all of them might very well take 48 hours and leave you no time to program your submission. To start, check out the Open Data 101 page, visit the Apps Gallery to get inspired here or brush up on you data skills by visiting the Working with Data and Application Programming Interfaces page.

Lastly, make sure you research the CODE 2015 categories Commerce, Quality of Life and Youth and start thinking about which datasets might work well for submissions in these categories.

Step 3: Get Organized

If you’re not participating from one of the CODE VIP HUBs: Do some grocery shopping! The last thing you want to do is have to leave your house for two hours to buy groceries to make dinner. It’s a 48-hour hackathon not a 46-hour hackathon. No time to waste!

Liquid Energy. No matter your preference, Red Bull, Tim Horton’s coffee, or apples, stock up on your favourite energy source so you can stay wide-eyed from Friday to Sunday!

Sleep. Sleep while you can.

Step 4: CODE Checklist

• Bring charging cables! Nothing can ruin an epic idea like electronics clocking out at the wrong moment.
• Organization! Make a development schedule for what needs to be done. Set goals or milestones, so you can keep track of whether you’re ahead or behind development schedule. Know the difference between what you need in your application and what you want.
• Use a repository during the weekend – either GitHub or Bitbucket or IBM JazzHub. You will be required to share your repository with your submission. Why not keep track of all your code changes throughout the weekend?
• Remember this is supposed to be a challenge. If you’re feeling stressed – go for walk, talk to fellow competitors, go on reddit and forget about your problems – but don’t quit. Challenges are meant to be difficult but they are also incredibly rewarding!
• Submit your app! Be prepared and allocate time in your development schedule for this. You can submit multiple times and we will only be judging the last version you uploaded. Take advantage of this and go through the process multiple times before submission close to reduce last minute stress.
• Pat yourself on the back – you just created an app in 48hours! You could win $15,000! You’re awesome – be proud of your accomplishment.

Finally, don’t forget to put yourself into the hacker mindset and prime your brain for thinking creatively, efficiently, and adaptively. Be ready to make quick decisions and change your mind even faster. And most important of all: remember to learn and have fun! If this is your goal, and you show up, you’ll have a great hackathon experience.