LavinMQ & Crystal teams collaborate on a Hackathon
Written by: Nyior Clement
Back in 2020, when I was still a student, I got accepted into the MLH Fellowship — an experience that exposed me to new technologies and connected me with fellow students from across the globe. That fellowship was my gateway to the MLH community, and it left a lasting impression on me. So, when MLH reached out to us at 84codes for a collaboration, I was delighted.
…Delighted to bring LavinMQ into the mix, especially because it’s a technology we are incredibly proud of. We built LavinMQ from the ground up, and the idea of introducing hundreds of MLH students to message brokering through LavinMQ was something we were eager to work on.
For me, It felt like everything had come full circle—this time, I wasn’t just a student learning from MLH; I was going to help teach the next generation — how exciting!
Flashback to Data Week: LavinMQ’s first hackathon
Our first collaboration with MLH happened during Data Week at the Global Hack Week in May: It was everything we hoped for. We ran a LavinMQ workshop, and seeing so many people join, and engage felt really good. The questions, the excitement—it felt like being in a room full of students hungry to learn.
I attended your LavinMQ session at MLH! I think you’re very good at explaining the concepts in a simple and digestible manner.
It was an enjoyable and informative session today on LavinMQ
Watching people build with LavinMQ for the first time was pleasant and we knew then that we had to keep this momentum going. For the Opensource Global Hack Week, we are coming with something different. Stay with me...
Stepping it up: Crystal + LavinMQ
We are cranking things up a notch by bringing the Crystal programming language team into the fold for the Major League Hacking (MLH) Global Hack Week - Open-source, taking place from October 4th - 10th, 2024. Crystal is cool, we are in love with it! Why? Because it’s fast, efficient, and clean—everything we wanted when we built LavinMQ.
During this Hackathon, we’re not just giving you a taste of LavinMQ; we’re also giving you a front-row seat to learning Crystal, the language that powers it. We’re genuinely excited about this collaboration and can’t wait to see what you build. But…
What can you expect?
This Hackathon is all about open-source— and what better way to engage than by working with two open-source projects, LavinMQ and Crystal? Both are built with the idea of openness, collaboration, and community. It is going to be a week of coding and more! Here’s what’s lined up for you:
- Crystal Workshop, October 4th, 8:00pm - 9:00pm UTC: The core Crystal team will be hosting a workshop to help you get started with the language.
- LavinMQ Workshop, October 7th, 2:00pm - 3:00pm UTC: Of course, we will be back with another LavinMQ workshop, where we will also help you get started with LavinMQ.
- The Main Challenge: We’ve crafted a series of challenges that will walk you through building a Crystal-based web crawler that talks to LavinMQ. You will experience exactly what made us fall in love with Crystal—its simplicity, speed, and elegance. And by the end, you would have built something real, functional, and cool.
The best part? It’s all beginner-friendly!
Don’t worry if you’re new to this. We’ll provide tons of resources to guide you through the challenges step by step. You’ll also have access to the Crystal and LavinMQ teams on the LavinMQ Slack channel. They will be there to answer all your questions, so you’ll never be stuck.
Ready to join?
- Sign up for the MLH Global Hack Week — Open-source.
- All the challenge details and resources will be available here.
- You can submit your challenges here.
This isn’t just about writing code—it’s about learning something new and meeting other developers. The collaboration between Crystal and LavinMQ is an amazing opportunity to learn two technologies in one go!
If you have questions regarding this Hackathon, join the LavinMQ Slack and ask your questions in the #global-hack-week channel - Happy to help!