This hackathon made us stop coding and start thinking.

Source: Dev.to

Introduction

We thought this hackathon would be about coding.
It turned out to be about thinking.

I’m a CSE student, and recently our team — DevTrio — got a problem statement that didn’t feel like a normal assignment. It wasn’t “build a website” or “create an app.” It was more like:

understand a real problem and figure out what actually makes sense to build.

Understanding the Problem

The first few days were honestly confusing. We kept reading the problem again and again, thinking we got it… and then realizing we didn’t. There’s a difference between reading a problem and understanding the people behind it.

The Thinking Phase

Instead of jumping into coding, we slowed down and started asking:

• Who are we building for?
• What does their daily life look like?
• What happens when things don’t go as planned?

No code. Just discussions, doubts, and a lot of rethinking. That phase felt slow, but now it feels like the most important part. Once we got some clarity, things started moving faster—not perfectly, but at least with direction.

Focusing on What Matters

We also realized something important — you can’t build everything. There are many ideas but very little time. So we had to focus on:

• What actually matters
• What we can realistically build
• What makes sense

And that’s harder than it sounds.

Approaching the Deadline

Now we’re just two days away from submission, and things are getting real. Deadlines are close, and explaining what we’re doing is sometimes harder than actually building it. But this experience already feels very different from our usual projects. It doesn’t feel like we’re just building something; it feels like we’re learning how to think.

Conclusion

Still a long way to go, but this already feels like one of the most valuable things we’ve worked on.

— Ruchita
Team DevTrio
Guidewire DEVTrails 2026