Hack the Halls: A Mendix Christmas Bauble Mini-Hackathon 🎄✨ (NL Version)

This Mendix Meetup brings a festive hackathon twist: you’ll design and style your very own digital Christmas baubles inside Mendix 11. Using only Mendix widgets and modern CSS (no JavaScript), guided by your own AI assistants like ChatGPT, Copilot, or Claude. You’ll learn how to create interactive, theme-aware ornaments that sparkle brightly on our shared Mendix Community Christmas Tree. This is the NL version, see here for BE version.

🦃 The Grand Prize
The organisers will make a selection. The audience will decide the winner by applause, measured with a decibel meter, and the loudest cheer will earn the champion a grand Christmas Prize. We may add additional prizes. A grading score form will be shared beforehand.

🎁 For Everyone
All participants will receive the final Mendix project containing the full list of baubles of all participants. That means you can take the magic home and sprinkle some Christmas love into your own production environment, right before December starts.

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## Aim of the Evening...

Is to let participants discover how to use AI to create fancy CSS features and animated SVGs that can make any Mendix app look and feel beautiful. You will take this time to learn how to experiment with prompts, CSS (variables) and visual effects, guided by coaches and some community spirit.

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## Takeaways

• 🎄 Style your Mendix app in a Christmas theme using only platform Mendix widgets and CSS (no JavaScript)
• 🤖 Practice AI-assisted vibe coding with ChatGPT, Copilot, or Claude to generate and refine CSS you can paste directly into Mendix (bring your own AI/Charged Laptop)
• 🌗 Build baubles that shine in both light and dark mode using CSS variables and theme switching in Mendix 11
• ✨ Get challenged to use modern CSS 2025 features like `:has()`, `light-dark()`, container queries, and cascade layers — and learn how to apply them with fallbacks for real-world use
• 🧑‍🎨 Learn practical front-end tricks: gradients, animations, conic patterns, focus states, and motion accessibility (`prefers-reduced-motion`), and how to use AI to do CSS magic, or any feature you’d like to experiment with
• 🌟 Take home the full starter project with all bauble templates, ready to bring festive love into your own Mendix production environment before December

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## Agenda

17:30 – 17:45 Walk-in & festive bites
17:45 – 18:00 Kick-off & instructions
18:00 – 19:30 Hack your own baubles + dinner (simple meal served at your work table)
19:30 – 20:30 Drinks & networking
20:30 – 20:45 Presentation of selected entries + applause-based voting
20:45 – 21:00 Winner announcement (after more networking + goodbyes)
21:30 End

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## Rules

• Bring your own setup: laptop with Mendix 11 installed and your preferred AI tool (ChatGPT, Copilot, Claude).
• Starter project is mandatory: it will be shared beforehand and includes a starter setup, including CSS variable setup, and theme switch.
• Each participant must create a new Styling Module in the project for their bauble(s). Merge conflcits will not be resolved. Create your own bauble page, we can link to (e.g. Bauble_Wouter_Penris)
• Pure Mendix + CSS only. No JavaScript. If you really want to impress, you may build a second optional bauble with JavaScript, but this is not part of the main assignment.
• AI prompting is part of the challenge: vibe coding encouraged!
• Hand in your page by 19:30 to appear on the Mendix Community Christmas Tree.
• We will provide a top 20 list of possible baubles to create, such as snowy backgrounds, snow crystals, baubles, candles, and more, as inspiration and guidance.

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## Organisers

• 🎤 Jeremie Degrave
  Mendix Expert · Sopra Steria Belgium. Jeremie has years of hands-on Mendix experience across industries, with a special passion for building scalable, enterprise-ready applications. He’s also a driving force in the Mendix community in Belgium.
• 🎤 Wouter Penris
  Senior Principal Expert · Sopra Steria Netherlands. Wouter is a Mendix MVP, trainer, and community builder. With over 20 years of teaching experience and a background in business analysis, he now focuses on scaling Mendix expertise through design systems, training, and Centers of Excellence. He brings both technical depth and a creative touch to community events.

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## About This Event

This is an in-person event hosted at the Sopra Steria office in Utrecht. No recording will be made. Mendix Meetups are about community, learning, and festive fun: no sales pitches, no recruiting, just pure front-end magic.