Here is a list of material that we found particularly useful to get hackathon participants up and running quickly.
Make sure to sign up here for Bluemix before the hackathon. It's free.
Start with these introductory videos:
Cloud Foundry is an open-source platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) that allows you to concentrate on your code without worrying about the underlying infrastructure (like VMs or containers). That allows you to get your apps up and running quickly ... an ideal environment for a hackathon.
Here's a a link to get you started: Creating Cloud Foundry apps
Have a look at this IBM Redbook as well, it gives a good overview of how to deploy your first app on Bluemix: [Essentials of Cloud Application Development on IBM Bluemix] ibm-redbook
If you prefer a more structured course, here is a link to a 4-hour online class to get you started with Bluemix: Bluemix Essentials
Covered the basics and want to move on? Level up with this in-depth material.
If you're working with others as part of a team, you'll probably want to use a collaborative coding tool like github and maybe also automate and orchestrate testing, notifications and deployments. The toolchain feature is meant to do exactly that. Click here to find out how to use it.
If the hackathon has an IoT theme to it, you'll want to learn Node-RED. It's an open-source "visual tool for wiring the Internet of Things" and a great way to quickly become productive in a very short period of time. It also requires very little coding knowledge.
Node-RED can be deployed on Bluemix with a single click.
Next, learn more about our IoT platform service. Once you understand how it works, go to this link here to find step-by-step instructions to connect your physical devices (like a Rasperry Pi, an Arduino or TI Sensor Tag).
Most hackathon participants want to take our IBM Watson services for a spin. Here are two detailed tutorials on how to integrate a cognitive service into your app:
Blockchains are all the rage these days and many hackathon apps make use of them. Here are some quick tutorials to get you started.
If you want to dive deeper, here is a link to 3 online courses
Here is the link to all the Bluemix online classes from IBM: developerWorks Courses
To really dive deep, you might want to take "Cloud Application Developer Certification Preparation", which should take you two or three days: Cloud Application Developer Certification Preparation
We have an assortment of webinars available in various languages. Have a look here.
And if you're looking for more, here is a link to over 400 detailed step-by-step coding tutorials for Bluemix.
Make sure to search the Bluemix docs first.
Still stuck? Head on over to stackoverflow.com and make sure to tag your question with "bluemix". Here is a direct link.
Looking for some inspiring examples? Here is a gallery of 20 well documented apps built on Bluemix. All of them with a cognitive capability and based on the Watson technology. Each has a link to the running app and also links to the source on github.
Head over to https://ibm-bluemix.github.io for more featured samples, most accompanied by an in-depth blog post.
And here are almost 500 apps built on Bluemix from previous hackathons, many linking to the source code.
Have a look at these videos to see what a hackathon feels like:
####ABN Amro #HackITon
####The Nordea Innovation Challenge
####Westpac & IBM Payments Hackathon
####SwissRe Hackathon NYC
####SwissRe Hackathon Bangalore
####Desjardins Healthy Living Hackathon
####ANZ Data Science Hackathon
####Multiple Sclerosis Hackathon 2016
Do you know of any other good material? Maybe something that helped you to get ready for a Bluemix hackathon? Feel free to send us a pull request!
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