Boston Music Hack Day starts in exactly 10 days.  At the Hack day you’ll have about 24 hours of hacking time to build something really cool.   If you are going to the Hack Day you will want to maximize your hacking time, so here are a few tips to help you get ready.

• Come with an idea or two but be flexible – one of the really neat bits about the Music Hack Day is working with someone that you’ve never met before. So have a few ideas in your back pocket, but keep your ears open on Saturday morning for people who are doing interesting things, introduce yourself and maybe you’ve made a team.  At previous hack days all the best hacks seem to be team efforts.  If you have an idea that you’d like some help on, or if you are just looking for someone to collaborate with, check out and/or post to the Music Hack Day Ideas Wiki.
• Prep your APIs – there  are a number of  APIs that you might want to use to create your hack. Before you get to the Hack Day you might want to take a look at the APIs, figure out which ones you might want to use- and get ready to use them.  For instance, if you want to build music exploration and discovery tools or apps that remix music, you might be interested in the Echo Nest APIs.   To get a head start for the hack day before you get there you should register for an API Key,  browse the API documentation then check out our resources page for code examples and to find a client library in your favorite language.
• Decide if you would like to win a prize – Of course the prime motivation is for hacking is the joy of building something really neat – but there will be some prizes awarded to the best hacks.  Some of the prizes are general prizes – but some are category prizes (‘best iPhone /  iPod hacks’) and some are company-specific prizes (best application that uses the Echo Nest APIs).  If you are shooting for a specific prize make sure you know what the conditions for the prize are.  (I have my eye on the Ultra 24 workstation and display, graciously donated by my Alma Mata).

To get the hack day jucies flowing check out this nifty slide deck on Music Hackday created by Henrik Berggren: