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SAS Hackathon 2024: Student Track Support
LGroves
SAS Employee

LGroves_0-1726162775262.gif

 

Here are a few assumptions about participants in the 2024 SAS Hackathon Student-Only Tracks:

 

  • You’re (somewhat) new to SAS
  • You’re still learning SAS Viya
  • You’re naturally inquisitive and looking to learn something (besides just showing off your awesome Hackin skills)

 

If that sounds about right, then great – we pegged you perfectly for our Student-Only Competition (and if you’re still confused about the Student Track in the 2024 SAS Hackathon, details are here).  By providing you with data and a use case in a low/no-code environment – we’re hoping that you can spend more time focused on the analyses and storytelling, rather than debugging code. Additionally these tracks don't require mentors - because the data and use cases are provided - students can start Hacking right away on September 16th.

 

With all that newness to SAS, you likely have a LOT to learn.  But have no fear, we are here to support you with resources!  As a starting point, please refer to the suggested Learning Resources in the Appendix in each of the use-cases.  No, seriously – if you are new to SAS – please start there before you try to start solving your use-case.  And, as a reminder, the use-cases + data can be found in GitHub repositories here:

 

 

Beyond those resources, please use the chat below to ask questions to get support from our wonderful community of SAS users.  Now they won’t always provide you with the exact answers – because it’s a learning experience after all. But… I’m hopeful that someone can point you quickly to one of our many great learning resources.  Moreover, you can support each other in this month-long Hack by responding directly to other’s questions… because there’s nothing like showing a little sportsmanship in any competition (and then crushing those other teams).

 

Finally, know that we’re consciously creating one Student Track Support page for the two tracks.  Why?  Because I suspect that there will be a fair amount of overlap in the initial questions on where to learn more.  And, as the questions get a bit more technical in nature, I’m hopeful that you can still learn a thing or two about the work in the other track.  Finally, you all have the same output – video submissions to your Team page – so there is likely to be some overlap in those questions too.  In other words, please help support each other in your joint quest below.  But… save some of the really good stuff for your submission 😊

 

Happy Hacking!

8 Comments
LGroves
SAS Employee

Monday, September 16th is here... and we're officially Hacking! 

Best of luck to all the teams!  And please use the chat below when you get stuck!

vietdoan
Calcite | Level 5

Hi,

Regarding with the timeline provided, my team hasn't received anything from or about a Mentor yet. I was wondering if the Student Track might have a different process. Or should we just wait until a Mentor reach out to our team?

vietdoan_0-1726559112066.png

 

LGroves
SAS Employee

Hello there @vietdoan!  Great question!

Since we provide the use case + data for the Student Only track, there are no assigned mentors.  So, please get Hacking with the resources we've provided - and put your questions is this chat.  Thank you!

vietdoan
Calcite | Level 5

vietdoan_0-1726825470033.png

How do we get access to this content here. When I use the same link, I get the following:

vietdoan_1-1726825504085.png

LGroves
SAS Employee

Hmmmm.  Did you sign up for the Welcome to SAS Viya Week, @vietdoan?  If not, then registration for those materials has technically closed.  But most of that material should be available in the SAS Hackathon Enablement Portal (https://learn.sas.com/course/view.php?id=6939)...

Finally, one quick Hack is just to get the materials from a teammate that has access...

Hope that helps!

ijha9
Fluorite | Level 6

Hi!

My team changed into the student track last minute. Per a previous post, I see that mentors will not be assigned. However, how can we access SAS Viya? I am being lead to various links that don't seem have a clear answer. I sent an email last week but this method may be more helpful. Let me know if you can help!

LGroves
SAS Employee

Oh no!  It's hard to hack without software!  @ijha9 - students can/should use SAS Viya for Learners.  And access is here: https://www.sas.com/en_us/software/viya-for-learners.html and is just a few clicks away!

Please let me know if that helps!

LGroves
SAS Employee

Two great questions came in a sidebar email.  So great, that I thought I'd share them here.  And paraphrase a bit:

 

Q1: I signed up for the SAS Hackathon under my personal email address.  But SAS VFL needs an academic email address.  Do I need to create a new SAS profile?

 

A1: Nope! 

LGroves_0-1727382908626.png

 

  • Next, in the Contact Information section, you can change your email:

LGroves_1-1727383027245.png

 

  • Change it.  To your academic email address 🙂

 

Q2: How do I collaborate directly with my teammates in VFL?

 

A2: Honestly? It's more complicated than we'd like. 

  • Why? We actually have 28 deployments (and counting) for VFL, which spread a load of nearly 7000 students across those environments. So, unfortunately, the probability that you get on the same environment as your teammates when you are randomly assigned is - well - not good.
  • Have no fear, there are still ways to share your work. And while portions of the SAS Communities article that I wrote for our VFL3.5 to VFL4 migration over the summer is now a bit old, the content for how to switch within VFL4 is still valid.  See the VFL4 to VFL4 guidance in this post: https://communities.sas.com/t5/SAS-Communities-Library/Transferring-content-from-SAS-Viya-for-Learne... to help you share your work with your teammates.

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