About the challenge

Welcome to HackChess! In this student-led hackathon, you will be creating a chess engine, optionally with the assistance of our workshops, and then competing against others' chess engines in a bracket tournament!

Our event starts on July 15th, 9 AM PST and ends at 5 PM on the 22nd. You can either use a chess engine you previously have developed, or create an entirely new one.

The benefits to you are plenty: programming a chess engine can improve your algorithmic thinking, help you manage an algorithm's complexity, help you coordinate and manage a large codebase, and give you a quantifiable way to measure the growth in your programming abilities.

We also have prize money for the people placing in the top four: 1st place receives $100, 2nd place receives $75, 3rd place receives $50, and fourth place receives $25.

Get started

First, join our Discord server: https://discord.gg/pSBv2nYqja

On July 6th, we will have an orientation and introduction to the project. To participate in the event, joining the Discord server is required.

Requirements

What to Build

For this event, you will need to build a chess engine and upload the project to GitHub. You do not need to build a GUI for the engine and it must be interfaceable with the UCI protocol (there will be a workshop on how to do this). The language that the engine is in does not matter. The GUI we will be using for the tournament will the Arena GUI.

What to Submit

Please upload the entirety of your project to GitHub and a video discussing your thought process and the design choices made in making your engine.

Hackathon Sponsors

Prizes

$270 in prizes
First Place
1 winner

Second place
1 winner

Third place
1 winner

Fourth place
1 winner

Most creative implementation
1 winner

Devpost Achievements

Submitting to this hackathon could earn you:

Judges

Logan Chu

Dmitrii Ivashchenko

Dmitrii Ivashchenko
MY.GAMES

Judging Criteria

  • Tournament Placement
    Participants will be judged on how well their engine places in the tournament. The top four contestants will be awarded a prize.
  • Most creative implementation
    The project with the most unique and creative implementation will be awarded as well.

Questions? Email the hackathon manager

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