About the challenge

HackMerced IX is the ninth iteration of the annual hackathon at UC Merced hosted by HackMerced! Get ready to build, create, and collaborate on a project in this 36-hour hackathon.

Get started

Start thinking about what kind of project you and your team can make in one of our three tracks: "AgTech", "Health for Social Good", and "Spatial & Interactivity"!

IMPORTANT

Please refer to https://live.hackmerced.com to see how much time is left to submit to the DevPost.

If you have any questions, for the last hour of submission time, we will help teams upload to the DevPost.

Judging will start from an hour after the hard submission deadline! Gather your thoughts and take a breather to best present with the rubric below.

Requirements

What to Build

You have creative freedom! Build anything you'd like that is related to the tracks and prizes that you are registering for. It can be hardware, software, mechanical, electrical, artistic, and so on! We look forward to seeing what you create :)

What to Submit

This is highly dependent on the project that you are building. In general, we are looking for proof of your work and an explanation of what you made. For example, if your project involves programming or CADing, then we require you to upload your files into a web-based version control repository (e.g. GitHub, GitLab). If you made something physical, then an explanation of how it was built along with the presentation during judging will suffice. Please submit a support ticket on our Discord or talk to us in COB1 105 from Mar 8th, 10pm to Mar 9, 11:59pm if you have any questions about submissions.

Hackathon Sponsors

Prizes

$15,161 in prizes
AgTech Track - 1st Place
1 winner

Nintendo Switch Lite
Wolfram|One Personal Edition plus a one-year subscription to Wolfram|Alpha Pro

The world needs innovative solutions to feed a growing population with sustainable practices. AgTech is where technology meets agriculture, tackling challenges like resource scarcity, climate change, and food insecurity.

By joining this hackathon track, you'll be at the forefront of creating solutions that can boost yields, optimize resource use, and improve farm management.

Hacks in this track can be anything AgTech related.

AgTech Track - 2nd Place
1 winner

Apple iPad 9th Generation
Wolfram|One Personal Edition plus a one-year subscription to Wolfram|Alpha Pro

The world needs innovative solutions to feed a growing population with sustainable practices. AgTech is where technology meets agriculture, tackling challenges like resource scarcity, climate change, and food insecurity.

By joining this hackathon track, you'll be at the forefront of creating solutions that can boost yields, optimize resource use, and improve farm management.

Hacks in this track can be anything AgTech related.

Health for Social Good Track - 1st Place
1 winner

JBL Flip
JBL Wireless Earbuds
Air Up Steel Bottle

Join our Health for Social Good track and make a real impact on global health disparities. Millions face barriers to essential healthcare due to poverty, geography, or discrimination. Your hacks can address these challenges and more, helping people better manage their health and access vital services. Make a difference in the lives of others with your innovative solutions in this track!

Health for Social Good Track - 2nd Place
1 winner

Polaroid Camera
Ducky Keyboard
Bone Conduction Headphones

Join our Health for Social Good track and make a real impact on global health disparities. Millions face barriers to essential healthcare due to poverty, geography, or discrimination. Your hacks can address these challenges and more, helping people better manage their health and access vital services. Make a difference in the lives of others with your innovative solutions in this track!

Spatial & Interactivity Track - 1st Place
1 winner

Amazon Gift Cards
Free annual subscription to Axure RP Team
Wolfram|One Personal Edition plus a one-year subscription to Wolfram|Alpha Pro

Technology is incredible! We can make a lot of things that we've never been able to make before. However, it's important that the technology we make today is interactive and inclusive to all. Things that you can see and touch make a long lasting effect to all of us and drives us to where we are today. Hacks in this track are projects that focus on interactivity and spatial technologies. This means anything that people can play around with! That ranges from GIS, AR/VR, and games!

Spatial & Interactivity Track - 2nd Place
1 winner

Amazon Gift Cards
AoPS Store $25 coupon
Wolfram|One Personal Edition plus a one-year subscription to Wolfram|Alpha Pro

Technology is incredible! We can make a lot of things that we've never been able to make before. However, it's important that the technology we make today is interactive and inclusive to all. Things that you can see and touch make a long lasting effect to all of us and drives us to where we are today. Hacks in this track are projects that focus on interactivity and spatial technologies. This means anything that people can play around with! That ranges from GIS, AR/VR, and games!

Eye Catcher (Best Duet)
1 winner

Fitbit Versa 4
Air Up Steel Bottle
Gift Card for Desmos Store merch (1)
Wolfram|One Personal Edition plus a one-year subscription to Wolfram|Alpha Pro

(Only teams of 2 are eligible for this prize)
The hack with the most pizazz will get this prize! 2 people and 2 eyes to catch from the judge... Can you convince them that your hack is the craziest of them all?

Best Use of MongoDB Atlas
1 winner

M5GO IoT Starter Kit

MongoDB Atlas takes the leading modern database and makes it accessible in the cloud! Get started with a $50 credit for students or sign up for the Atlas free forever tier (no credit card required). Along with a suite of services and functionalities, you'll have everything you need to manage all of your data, and you can get a headstart with free resources from MongoDB University! Build a hack using MongoDB Atlas for a chance to win a M5GO IoT Starter Kit for you and each member of your team.

Best Domain Name from GoDaddy Registry
1 winner

Hack from Home Kit

GoDaddy Registry is giving you everything you need to be the best hacker no matter where you are. Register your domain name with GoDaddy Registry for a chance to win a Hack from Home Kit! Each Kit contains wireless earbuds, blue light glasses, selfie ring light and a pouch for easy transport.

Best Use of Auth0
1 winner

Wireless Headphones & Battery Pack

Auth0 wants your applications to be secure! Why spend hours building features like social sign-in, Multi-Factor Authentication, and passwordless log-in when you can enable them through Auth0 straight out of the box? Auth0 is free to try, doesn’t require a credit card, and allows for up to 7,000 free active users and unlimited log-ins. Make your new account today and use any of the Auth0 APIs for a chance to win a pair of wireless headphones and a battery pack for you and each member of your team!

Best DEI Hack sponsored by Fidelity
1 winner

Fidelity Branded Wireless Charger

At Fidelity, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion are viewed as major keys to the success of their business, which is why they are challenging you to come up with innovative ways to create forward-thinking financial tech that promotes equality for all people! We want you to use your hacking skills to find and build solutions that put financial opportunities and resources within reach for all communities, creating accessible, sustainable, and/or inclusive solutions. The team with the best hack will win a Fidelity branded wireless charger for each team member!

Best Use of Flow
Cryptocurrency logo
1 winner

$200 USD in FLOW Token

Flow is a public, decentralized, layer-one blockchain designed for creating limitless Web3 apps for mainstream adoption. Flow empowers hackers like you to build decentralized applications and share them with the world. Write safe and readable smart contracts with Cadence and explore the potential of composable, on-chain logic. With SDKs in multiple languages like Javascript, Go, Kotlin, Python, Swift, Unity, you can jump in and start your hack using Flow this weekend for a chance to win $200 USD worth of FLOW token for each member of your team!

Best Use of AI in Education
1 winner

TickTime Pomodoro Timer

Artificial Intelligence (AI) models, such as large language models (LLMs), are transforming how we interact with computers. During this weekend's hackathon, we want you to apply AI towards improving education to produce tools that support the quality, accessibility, and equitability of learning in today's classrooms. You can use AI to address any challenge teachers and students face, such as curriculum planning, question selection, teacher training, content generation, personalized feedback, automated grading and more.

For this challenge, we encourage you to draw on your own educational experiences and propose technical solutions to problems you've regularly encountered as students — after all, you are the best to know where our education system needs improvement. Design impactful and effective AI tools for education for a chance to win a TickTime Pomodoro Timer!

To give you some inspiration, we're sharing some educational and technical resources:

This list of the most pressing issues educational leaders have around AI
An introduction to the emerging field of Learning Engineering
A map of AI in education
A recent competition series using LLMs for automated essay evaluation

Continuation Award (Special Prize)
1 winner

For the hack for the most potential, we are awarding $250 upfront to continue building the app, and we are giving $500 when the app is released to the public, within 2 months.

Devpost Achievements

Submitting to this hackathon could earn you:

Judges

Porfirio Montoya

Porfirio Montoya
Executive Director / HackMerced

Alisson Ross

Alisson Ross
Frontend Director / HackMerced

Mohamed Hasan

Mohamed Hasan
Backend Director / HackMerced

Noor Irshad

Noor Irshad
Director of Design / HackMerced

Jet Lin

Jet Lin
Organizer & Frontend Developer / HackMerced

Shawn Duong

Shawn Duong
Alumni / HackMerced

Athena Siaotong

Athena Siaotong
Alumni / HackMerced

Manjot Singh

Manjot Singh
Alumni / HackMerced

Shubham Naik

Shubham Naik
Alumni / HackMerced

The Ryan Lee

The Ryan Lee
The Legend

Cecilia La Place

Cecilia La Place
MLH

Shubham Rohal

Shubham Rohal
CITRIS

Pranav Kumar Chaudhary

Pranav Kumar Chaudhary
Senior Software Engineer / Amazon

Shivi Sharma

Shivi Sharma
Data Tech Lead / Varo Money

Utsav Shah

Utsav Shah
Senior Data Scientist II / Cruise LLC

Minos Park

Minos Park
Software Engineer / Neuralink https://devpost.com/minos

Judging Criteria

  • Innovation
    The uniqueness of the project's approach, considering how it differs from existing ideas.
  • Execution
    The effectiveness of the project's performance including code quality and functionality.
  • Impact
    The project's potential to address community needs, considering its positive impact on individuals.
  • Adaptability
    The project's ability to adapt to circumstances during development, considering its flexibility to any obstacles.
  • Collaboration
    The level of collaboration among team members, including communication, division of tasks, and problem-solving.
  • User Experience (UX)
    The effectiveness of the project's performance including code quality and functionality.
  • Pitch
    The effectiveness of the team's technical presentation, including their ability to communicate complex ideas and demonstrate the project's technical aspects.

Questions? Email the hackathon manager

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Hackathon sponsors

Track Sponsors
Additional Sponsors

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