almost 2 years ago
In-Person Venue Information (IMPORTANT!)
If you're coming in person tomorrow, please read through!
Schedule
The schedule is shown on our Devpost page. The venue will open at 9:00 AM and close at 3:00 PM.
Parents cannot enter the venue - only students, aside from our judges and mentors. Your parents are welcome to drop you off and pick you up, but not to enter the cafeteria where the event is being held. Students will be under constant adult supervision by JPS faculty.
Food
Lunch (Costco cheeze pizza) will be served around 12:20 PM. Since the slices are rather large, only a first slice will be guaranteed to everyone; second slices will be on a first come, first serve basis.
Snacks and drinks will be available for purchase throughout the event. Cash will be the only accepted payment method.
Ordering food to the venue will not be permitted. Bringing your own food will only be permitted if you have a dietary restriction or if you are part of the event staff. Otherwise, please help yourself to the snacks, drinks, and free lunch.
Location Info
Developing on School Devices
Personal laptops are preferred because they have fewer software restrictions, but if you must use a school device, read the following:
High School students in Edison using a school-issued MacBook should install an IDE (code editor), like Visual Studio Code, Pycharm, or Eclipse, from Self Service. It might be difficult to install them directly from their websites due to device restrictions. Install at home tonight to prevent lag or slowness tomorrow. If you did not register by earlier this week, Visual Studio Code may not be available in Self Service - but you can still use the other IDEs listed there or use a web-based alternative.
Students using Chromebooks should familiarize themselves with the web-based tools listed later in this notice.
Developing on Personal Laptops
We highly recommend using Visual Studio Code as a general-purpose IDE for almost any programming language. You can install it from https://code.visualstudio.com.
If you plan on using a programming language that needs a runtime environment on your device (Java, Python, NodeJS...) make sure to search up a tutorial on how to set up those languages on your operating system if needed.
If you need to install anything, do it tonight rather than tomorrow!
Web-Based Tools
Check out these tools you can use for developing within your browser without installing additional software.
- VSCode.dev - an in-browser version of the popular IDE (code editor) Visual Studio Code
- Replit - a full development environment that can be used with any language/toolchain in the browser on any platform, even enabling live collaboration similar to Google Docs
- Stackblitz - in-browser Visual Studio Code IDE similar to VSCode.dev but with a semi-complete development environment perfect for web development with modern frameworks
Forming Teams
In case you didn't already know, you won't need a team before coming. You can form teams with people you meet at the event, or even participants you met online in our Discord server or from Devpost!
Communicating with Teammates
Thanks to the generous support of the JPS Technology Department, Discord will be accessible on school and personal devices at JPS for the duration of the event. You will be able to communicate with teammates who may be participating virtually. However, we recommend setting up an alternate means of communication (such as through text messages) in the event that there is an issue with using Discord.
If you have not yet joined the Discord server, please join here. You will miss important updates if you aren't in it.
We are here to help!
Our team members and mentors will be happy to assist you during the event, although most of us will be at the in-person venue for the beginning of the hackathon.
That being said, for those coming in person, the wifi at JPS can be unreliable at times. We recommend you install any necessary software before coming.