Getting started with AWS 

Get started by signing up for a free AWS account. AWS Lambda offers free 1 million requests per month with AWS free tier. If you’re new to AWS, watch these tutorials on account set up and best practices.

AWS will provide $25 in AWS credits to individuals registered for this hackathon, while supplies last. You can request a credit code by accessing the form in the To-dos section after registration. AWS Builder ID is required to fill out the form. Use these instructions to redeem your AWS credits.

 

AWS Lambda

AWS Lambda is a compute service that runs your code in response to events and automatically manages the compute resources, making it the fastest way to turn an idea into a modern, production, serverless applications. Learn how to get started with AWS Lambda using this tutorial and developer guides (AWS Lambda Developer Guide / Serverless Developer Guide).

 

Support

To get support while you are participating in the hackathon, you can join the Slack community (use the #2025-lambda-hackathon channel), or you can post your question on AWS re:Post.

 

 

Office hours 

Join our Serverless Office Hours every Tuesday (June 10, 17, and 24) from 11am-12pm PT to learn about Lambda and serverless computing directly from AWS experts - bring your questions and get hands-on guidance to level up your hackathon project!

 

Inspiration

Get inspired by practical application examples that showcase the versatility of AWS Lambda in solving real-world challenges:

  • Document Summarizer: Create a system where users can input document text and receive a summarized version through Lambda and Bedrock (Claude), with optional features like API Gateway, response streaming, and S3 storage.
  • Menu Text-to-Image Converter: Build an application that transforms uploaded PDF menus into visual representations using Lambda and Bedrock (Stable Diffusion) when triggered by S3 uploads.
  • Game Leaderboard: Develop a scoring system using API Gateway, Lambda, and DynamoDB to submit and retrieve game scores through two simple APIs.
  • Disaster Recovery Agent: Design an emergency response system that uses Lambda as an MCP server to help emergency teams, with potential integration of Step Functions and event-driven architecture.
  • Survey Analytics: Implement a data processing system where Lambda handles large amounts of survey data and leverages Bedrock for comprehensive summaries and evaluations.
  • GIF Builder: Create a dynamic image processing application that demonstrates parallel processing capabilities by distributing work across multiple Lambda functions.

 

You can use any AWS service of your choosing to build your serverless application. Some that may be of interest include:

  • AWS Step Functions: AWS Step Functions is a serverless orchestration service that lets you combine AWS Lambda functions and other AWS services to build business-critical applications. You can design and run workflows that stitch together services into feature-rich applications.

  • Amazon EventBridge: Amazon EventBridge is a serverless event bus service that makes it easy to connect applications together using data from your own applications, AWS services, or SaaS application. It delivers a stream of real-time data and routes that data to targets like AWS Lambda.

  • Amazon Bedrock: Amazon Bedrock is a fully managed service that offers a choice of high-performing foundation models from leading AI companies through a single API. You can use it to build generative AI applications with enterprise-grade security and privacy, making it ideal for enhancing your serverless applications with AI capabilities.

 

Tutorials / Workshops

  • Use AWS Lambda workshops that are designed to teach or introduce practical skills, techniques, or concepts of AWS Lambda.
  • Visit Serverless Land, which is a website that brings together the latest information, blogs, videos, code, and learning resources for AWS Serverless. Learn to use and build apps that scale automatically on low-cost, fully-managed serverless architecture