Here are our biggest takeaways from the 24-hour “Vibe Coding” hackathon

I like to spend most of my weekends with friends, attending workout classes, exploring new restaurants, or vegging out on the couch while watching a movie. However, this past weekend was a unique one. Instead of my usual routine, I decided to immerse myself in a 24-hour “vibe coding” hackathon.

I participated in one of the largest in-person hackathons in Singapore's history. The hackathon was sponsored and supported by AI heavyweights from around the world, including OpenAI, Cursor, Anthropic, and Google DeepMind.

The event was held on the university's campus from approximately 9 a.m. Saturday to noon Sunday. More than 400 people participated, ranging from experienced engineers to first-timers. The goal was simple: build something from scratch with the help of artificial intelligence.

“Use your imagination… build something free. Build something outlandish,” said Agrim Singh, one of the event organizers and co-founder of Niyam AI.

Some teams took that advice seriously.

Some standout projects include F**Yu.AI, an AI-enabled productivity app that “teases you into greatness” by calling users on their phones and yelling at them to complete tasks, and RizzedIn, a dating site that helps connect “career-minded individuals.”

By the end of the weekend, approximately 150 projects had been submitted. The winner walked away with more than S$50,000 (approximately $39,000) for an AI-powered whiteboard tool that allows users to draw using only hand movements tracked by a webcam.

The second and third place winners created a human vs. AI speed game and a “Netflix for Corporate Training” tool that makes compliance training videos more appealing to employees.

I was nervous to attend the event as I don't have a technical background, but I was excited to meet the hackathon community. I knew I needed to team up with people who were much more technical than me to give me the best chance of building something successfully.

I found a team for a hackathon through Discord. Gabrielle Ong with a product development background, Aung Maung with a deep technology background, Ninna Cao with a product design background, and Jay Chen with a software engineering background. What did I offer? Ideas, storytelling ability, atmosphere.

We bonded over a shared desire to preserve our grandparents' legacy. That's why we built Heirloom, a digital time capsule that allows you to capture and preserve your family's stories and recipes and pass them on to the next generation.

We spent an entire Saturday working on turning our idea into a product. Some of us stayed up all night to work on the project, but unfortunately others (like me) didn't have the energy.

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

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

“We were trying to do a little counting…and we found people like random lecture halls. That was the most interesting thing…it was like catching wild Pokemon,” Jean said.

Richard Lee, who developed the gamified habit-training app Orbie with teammate Amanda Lau-Shanning, slept on the auditorium floor for only about 30 minutes. He has development experience and knows coding languages ​​such as Python and SQL.

When asked why he chose to participate in the hackathon, Lee said: “I thought it was a personal challenge to see (what) I can actually do in 24 hours, (and) to see how far I've come in vibe coding,” Lee said. He also thought it was a great place to get inspiration.

“It's like a group of builders…people who don't just learn but do,” Lee added. “It's almost like training for a startup, right? In effect, you just have to focus and get something done.”

By the end of the weekend, Lee said she felt her skills had been “hugely upgraded” even though the hackathon was only 24 hours long.

Hackathon organizers said the aim was to revitalize Singapore's builder community. Co-organizer Zhang said many in the field feel the hackathon scene has declined since its heyday.

Fellow organizer Mr Singh agreed, writing in a LinkedIn post: “Singapore's hackathon scene has lost its soul.”

Singh, who has been participating in hackathons since 2013, observed that such events were centered around hackers and builders creating “something that works,” rather than “panels and sponsorship decks and photo ops.”

“Right now? Most AI events here feel empty: panels with people who have no exposure to the technology; 'thought leadership' with no practical weight; people pretending to be building, or worse, squeezing revenue from the hype without caring about the ecosystem,” he wrote.

Advances in AI have revolutionized the startup landscape and the software engineering industry. It's now easier for people without a technical background to build technology products themselves.

According to Jiang, about half of the participants were completely new to hackathons.

Zhang also noted that some participants who learned Code Vibration just a few weeks ago were ranked “quite high” in the event's rankings, ahead of more experienced engineers.

“This is just a little bit of a theory that I have…I feel like engineering is a lot easier now, so people who have good product sense and taste and know how to position their products are starting to do really well at these hackathons,” she said. “We lowered the barrier, but we raised the bar.”

“The time it takes to build is much shorter than it used to be,” said Lee, a hackathon participant. “I think it's now much easier for developers, engineers, and even non-technical people to build a prototype and bring it to market effectively.”

Additionally, Lee and Jiang agree that with the arrival of these AI-assisted coding tools on the market, both startup teams and enterprise developer teams will likely become smaller.

That being said, having some background in software engineering is very helpful as it will help you get to the end. Hackathon participant Lee said people still need to know how to evaluate code from a basic logic perspective and understand how to deal with problems in code.

Finally, he added, AI models are improving so rapidly that engineers must continually improve their tools and stay up-to-date or risk becoming redundant.