One hackathon project I did, we made a minigolf game what you play with your phone on a selfie stick. It was made of websockets and sshtunnels and the worlds worst python physics engine.

Another of my hackathon projects is now a company finishing up a bridge round, with our 510k equivalence paperwork submitted to the FDA a few months ago. It consisted, at time of judging, largely of powerpoint slides and burnt teraflops.

I would categorize the first as a hackathon done right, and the second as the astonishing incentives that whisper “don’t do this hackathon right”