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As soon as you turn it competitive, you lose the benefits of this type of event ....

Strongly disagree with this meme.

There's a long, wonderful tradition of competitive hacking and nerdery: soap box derbies, spelling bees, egg drop competitions, balsa wood bridge building contests, and trivia bowls, to name a few. Since when did competition stop any of these from being fun ways to learn new things, show off your skills, and make friends?

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>Since when did competition stop any of these from being fun ways to learn new things, show off your skills, and make friends?

When they became fun ways to get [prize].

The prize has to be inconsequential to maintain the atmosphere the grandparent refers to. "Hacker bragging rights" is a good prize because it is hard to hack; it incentivizes the right things (pleasing the community).

I've long preferred having hackathon prizes that are in the spirit of hacking (think Arduinos, drones, various sensors).

They're fun because people might not normally buy them, but would be a great prize to say that you won at a hackathon.

A YC interview as a prize would be way too valuable to have a just-for-fun competition for.

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