These are my biggest takeaways from the 24-hour ‘vibe coding’ hackathon

I like to spend most of my weekends taking workout classes with friends, exploring new restaurants, or vegging out on the couch with a movie on. Last weekend, however, was unique. Instead of the usual routine, I chose to immerse myself in a 24-hour ‘vibe coding’ hackathon.

I participated in Singapore’s biggest personal hackathon ever, which was Sponsored and supported by AI heavyweights Worldwide including OpenAI, Cursor, Anthropic, Google DeepMind and more.

The program was held in the university campus from 9 AM on Saturday to 9 PM on Sunday. More than 400 people participated, ranging from highly experienced engineers to first-timers. The goal was simple: build something from scratch with the help of artificial intelligence.

“Use your imagination… create something unobtrusive. Create something wacky,” said Agrim Singh, an organizer of the event and co-founder of Niam AI.

Many teams really took that advice to heart.

Some standout projects include F**Yu.AI, an AI-powered productivity app that “threatens you for greatness,” calls users on their cell phones to yell at them to complete tasks, and RizzedInA dating site that helps connect “career-minded individuals”.

By the end of the week, about 150 projects had been submitted. The the winner – an AI-powered whiteboarding tool that allows users to draw using their hand movements tracked by a webcam — won prizes worth more than $50,000 Singapore dollars (about $39,000).

Second and third place winners created human-versus-AI motions the game and a “Netflix for corporate training” tool that makes compliance training videos more engaging for employees.

We are bound by a shared desire to preserve the legacy of our grandparents. So, we built Ancestry — a digital time capsule that can be used to capture and store family stories and recipes, so they can be passed down to future generations.

We spent all day Saturday turning our idea into a product. Some of us worked on the project all night – while others (me) unfortunately didn’t have the stamina to do so.

When I returned to campus on Sunday morning, I saw people sleeping on benches, on the floor and just about everywhere else, while others were still making last-minute adjustments before submitting their projects for judging.

About 70 people stayed overnight to work on their project, said Sherry Jiang, one of the event organizers and co-founder of fintech app Peak.

“We were trying to do some counting… and we found people in random lecture rooms. It was the funniest (thing)… it was like catching wild Pokemon,” Jiang said.

Richard Lee, who created a gamified habit-training app Orbi Along with his colleague Amanda Lau Shernin, slept on the floor of the lecture hall for only half an hour. He had previous developer experience and knew coding languages ​​like Python and SQL.

When asked why he chose to join the hackathon, he said: “I took it as a personal challenge to see what can actually be done in 24 hours (and) see how far Vibe Coding has come,” Lee said. He also thought it would be a great place to get inspiration.

“It’s like a gathering of builders … who not only learn, but do,” Lee added. “It’s almost like training for a startup, right? Effectively, you just have to focus and get something done.”

By the end of the weekend, Lee says that even though the hackathon was only 24 hours long, he felt he had “significantly upgraded” his skills.

Fellow organizer Singh agreed, writing on LinkedIn Post That “the Singapore hackathon scene has lost its soul.”

Singh, who has participated in hackathons since 2013, observes that such events allow hackers and builders to “make something work” instead of “panels or sponsorship decks or photo ops”.

“Now? Most AI events here feel hollow. Panels of people who have never touched the technology. ‘Thought leadership’ that has no practical weight. People pretending to monetize the hype without regard for the ecosystem, or worse,” he wrote.