A 36-hour hackathon timeline, hour by hour

At an Integral Startup Foundation hackathon
At an Integral Startup Foundation hackathon

Originally published at https://pranjulrathour.scult.in/blog/36-hour-hackathon-timeline. That copy is the canonical version and gets updates first.

Two nights, almost no sleep — that was STROT, and we did not win. The projects that won for us followed a plan. This is the timeline I share with teams I mentor, built for a 36-hour event with judging at hour 36.

Hours 0–2: decide

Problem, user, one demo path, roles on paper (see forming a hackathon team). Talk to three people who have the problem if you possibly can — organisers, volunteers, the canteen staff. Do not open an editor yet.

Hours 2–6: skeleton

Repository, deployment target, a page that loads, an API that returns a hard-coded answer, the AI call working once. Everything wired end-to-end with fake data. This is the walking skeleton, and it is your first checkpoint.

In a packed college auditorium
In a packed college auditorium

Hours 6–14: the core feature

Replace the fake data with the real thing along the single demo path. Storyteller drafts the pitch and slides in parallel and interviews the team for the story. Sleep in shifts if the event runs overnight; the 3 a.m. code is the code you rewrite at 9.

Hours 14–24: make it real

Seeded data, error handling on the demo path, the one alternate path, a landing screen that explains the problem. First full rehearsal of the pitch with a timer at hour 22. Cut anything that is not on the demo path.

Hours 24–30: polish and rehearse

Rehearse the pitch five times. Fix the front end where judges will look. Prepare answers to the five likely questions (see questions judges ask in hackathon Q&A). Record the fallback video.

Pranjul Rathour at a campus event
Pranjul Rathour at a campus event

Hours 30–34: freeze

No new features. Run the demo checklist. Charge everything. Eat.

Hours 34–36: present

Arrive early, test the projector, breathe. Let the storyteller open, the builder demo, and whoever built each part answer for it.

The two checkpoints — skeleton at hour 6, freeze at hour 30 — are the whole method. Teams that hit both almost always have something real to show; teams that skip them present a plan.

From my carousels
Three First Prizes, One Loss
Three First Prizes, One Loss, slide 1Three First Prizes, One Loss, slide 2
Three First Prizes, One Loss, slide 3Three First Prizes, One Loss, slide 4
Full carousel on Instagram and LinkedIn.
Pranjul Rathour
Pranjul Rathour
GenAI engineer, Kanpur · 3x first-prize hackathon winner · campus mentor
I ship production RAG pipelines, fine-tune LLMs and build agentic AI products end to end. I lead engineering at SCULT INDIA for a 14-member team and have mentored 200+ students through TechVerse Enclave.
Open to: GenAI roles, hackathon judging, mentorship sessions and guest talks at colleges.
On stage, at hackathons and on campus
Pitching at CSJMU, Kanpur
Pitching at CSJMU, Kanpur
Trophy and certificate of merit at Vividhotsava 2025
Trophy and certificate of merit at Vividhotsava 2025
Walking a room through evaluation criteria
Walking a room through evaluation criteria

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