Hello hello hello!
Welcome to PART TWO of our three part MB Success Stories series! If you want to be filled in on what a "MB Success Stories series" is, check out our first blog post here that highlights Ryan Tran's MB success story !
Today's blog post series focuses on Leo Yulin Li and his experience before, during, and after a Mintbean hackathon!
Leo Yulin Li: find him on LinkedIn here
Question 1: Was this your first hackathon? What does the word hackathon make you think? Does it intimidate you or excite you?
Leo: This is not my first hackathon, but it is my first after I have become a software engineer. Before I attend this hackathon, I already had a sense of what it is, so it is more exciting than intimidating to me.
Question 2: How did you choose your Mintbean hackathon team? List one top quality from both partner's!
Leo: I have prior experience in working with Ryan in a MERN group project, so I know he is really determined to solve any problem that comes up in the way, and that showed when we worked on the tour feature of our app. I have seen Bryan's work and all of them have a really good look and feel.
Question 3: What made you excited about Mintbean’s hackathon specifically? Anything catch your eye that made you think “wow, I HAVE to do this”?
Leo: To be honest, I was invited by Bryan, so I didn't really know the hackathon until the last minute.
Question 4: What was your inspiration behind your winning project, "tmrw"?
Leo: The main idea was making something that we would personally use. For example, the saving and loading function is a key feature that I would need to use to sync data between devices.
Question 5: What were your struggles during the hackathon? What were your wins? Those A-HA moments that make you wanna high-five everyone!
Leo: The tour feature was definitely the hardest problem we dealt with in this project. It worked fine until we introduced a modal to the mix. We fixed it almost the last minute and it was relieving.
Question 6: How did the “Mintbean method” help your hackathon experience? Did you get help from a mentor? Did you get help from the community?
Leo: For the most part, we work on our own, but mintbean cli did simplify our setup process quite a lot.
Question 7: How was your experience POST Mintbean hackathon win?
Leo: There was a pretty good analysis of our project and Mintbean helped us promote our project on LinkedIn which was pretty cool and helpful.
Question 8: Did this impact your job hunt in a positive way?
Leo: For me not yet, but I did hear good news from Ryan and Bryan!
Question 9: If you could tell someone who is too intimidated to try a hackathon anything to encourage them, what would you tell them?
Leo: To me, I didn't come in with a mind to win or anything. I took it as more like an opportunity where I can work on requirements from others and work with a short turn around time. It is an experience hard to emulate. Focus on what you can learn. I went to my first hackathon during high school without knowing the basic syntax of the language I was writing, and I learned it during the hackathon. It was still a fun experience.
Question 10: Would you do a Mintbean hackathon again?
Leo: I was interested in the no mouse hackathon but due to schedule conflict I couldn't attend, but I was really looking forward to that one.
Check out the winning project here: mintkanban.github.io/MintKanban/#
Since then, Leo has gone on to win our NEXT big hackathon event, JavaScript Campus Playoffs! Check out his winning project here!
Tune in for our final winner, Bryan on the next blog post!
To learn more about Mintbean, the community, our workshops, and meetups, check out our website here: mintbean.io
If you would like to attend a hackathon yourself (or with a team), check out our upcoming hackathons here: