Hi, it’s Bianca Buzea, Head of Developer Relations at LUKSO. If you are looking to buidl during BuildUP #2, LUKSO’s signature hackathon, then this guide is for you.

I love hackathons. I have attended multiple hackathons as an attendee, judge, and organizer. I strongly believe that when it comes to the success of a hackathon, a significant part can be attributed to having the right tools and keeping yourself organized. That is why I created this guide for you, to give you a head start on BuildUP #2.

Here is what this guide covers:

Over €250K in LYX Bounties
Curious Nuggets
Getting Help
Tips for a successful hackathon
The Power of a Good Presentation
Next Steps

Bounties Overview

Over €250K in LYX Bounties distributed equally across four categories:

⚒️Infrastructure & Tools
🎙️Culture & Entertainment
🧑‍🤝‍🧑 Social & Community
💙 Blue Sky

Requirements:

• An URL to your deployed project that judges can test
• A short video that describes the scope and functionality of your project (around 3 minutes)
• A public GitHub repository with the project’s code

Curious Nuggets:

• LUKSO is an L1 chain, EVM-compatible for Creative Economies
• Dapps will be judged on their potential as a valuable contribution to the ecosystem, technical excellence, originality and creativity, and user experience and design
• Universal Profiles just launched on Mainnet
• Bonus points for leveraging LUKSO Standard Proposals (LSPs)’ capabilities, Universal Profiles, and different tools such as (ERC725.js for encoding, or lsp-factory.js for deployments)

Getting Help

Participants got weekly “Q&A with the LUKSO Tech Team” for the duration of the hackathon and a dedicated #hacker-discussion channel in the ⎡HACKATHON⎦ section of the LUKSO Discord server.

Tips for a Successful Hackathon

Don`t reinvent the wheel

Make use of the available tools. There is no need to reinvent the wheel. Besides the generic EVM tools, make sure to check out the LUKSO-specific tools such as ERC725 Inspect, which allows you to inspect the key/values of an ERC725Y compatible smart contract, lsp-factory.js for easy deployments of ERC725-UniversalProfiles, and digital assets, or erc725.js that allows you to interact with ERC-725 schemas easily. You can find a full overview of all the available tools in the Tools section from the documentation.

Focus on the MVP

Aim to build a minimum viable product that addresses the core functionality or solves the main problem. You won’t be able to sort out every single detail and fix every bug. You can always add more features if time allows.

The Power of a Good Presentation

One of the most frequent mistakes teams make during hackathons is to focus exclusively on the code and not allocate time for the presentation. While the code is indeed a crucial part, teams should also make sure to save enough time for the presentation. A captivating presentation is a valuable complement to a technically proficient project. Not only does it describe the scope and functionality, and it captures the judges' attention, but it also helps distinguish your project from others.

Next Steps

Remember that hackathons are not just about bounties; they're also about learning, discovering new technologies, making new friends, and having fun! Enjoy the experience and the opportunity to work on something new and exciting. Also, don’t underestimate where a project might take you. Having a well-built hackathon project serves as a valuable addition to your portfolio and can also serve as a solid foundation for launching your next web3 startup. You never know how far you might get unless you try.

Come check out the LUKSO docs and make sure to submit your project before the 27th of November, 16:00 UTC.