WELCOME TO THE TIDAL HACKATHON SPRING 2026

The Tidal Hackathon is a one day hackathon that will take place in person at the MSC at TAMU. Hackers will brainstorm, build, and test their unique machine-learning applications and be scored on a scale of creativity and execution. Participants will showcase their ability to apply novel concepts to variable problems by using their problem-solving and technical skills.

This year's hackathon prompt is to create an interdisciplinary project applying AI, machine learning, and data science to fields that have historically underutilized these technologies to address a real-world problem and create substantive change.

Requirements

Teams should be a maximum of 4 hackers. 

All team members must be in person to demo. You must be on-time to judging or risk not being judged.

You can only submit a project that is built during this period. You cannot submit this project to any other hackathon or vice versa. 

Hackathon Sponsors

Prizes

$3,000+ in prizes
+ other prizes
1st Place
1 winner

4K TV + $1000 + MLH Winner Pins

2nd Place
1 winner

AirPods + MLH Winner Pins

3rd Place
1 winner

Air Fryer + MLH Winner Pins

Best UI/UX Hack
1 winner

Mystery LEGO Set

Best Beginner Hack
1 winner

Jane Street Water Bottles

Best Solo Hack
1 winner

Gift Basket + Jane Street Speaker

Best Use of Featherless.ai
3 winners

1st Prize: Featherless Scale Plan worth $300
2nd Prize: Featherless Scale Plan worth $150
3rd Prize: Featherless Scale Plan worth $75

Best Use of MongoDB Atlas
1 winner

MongoDB Atlas brings a powerful modern database to the cloud, making it easy to get started. Students can receive a $50 credit, or sign up for the free forever tier with no credit card required. With a full suite of tools and services, you’ll have everything you need to store, manage, and scale your data. You can also jumpstart your learning with free courses from MongoDB University. Build a project using MongoDB Atlas for a chance to win an M5GO IoT Starter Kit for you and each member of your team.

Prize: IoT starter kit

Best Use of DigitalOcean
1 winner

DigitalOcean is best utilized for fast, cost-effective hosting of web applications, SaaS products, and development environments, particularly for startups and SMBs

Prize: Retro Mouse

Best Use of Google Gemini
1 winner

Google Gemini excels at boosting productivity, creativity, and learning by integrating with Google apps, summarizing info, drafting content, planning, and offering multi-modal understanding (text, voice, images) for tasks like brainstorming, scheduling, coding help, image analysis, travel planning, and daily organization, making it a versatile AI assistant for everyday users and professionals.

Prize: Swag Kits

Best Use of Solana
1 winner

Solana is best used for building high-speed, low-cost decentralized applications (dApps) such as DeFi platforms, NFT marketplaces, real-time gaming, and payment systems. Its high throughput and low transaction fees make it ideal for applications that require fast processing and scalability.

Prize: Ledger Nano S-plus

Best Use of ElevenLabs
1 winner

ElevenLabs is best used for generating realistic AI voiceovers and speech from text. It’s ideal for applications like audiobooks, podcasts, virtual assistants, video narration, and real-time voice experiences that require natural-sounding, high-quality speech.

Prize: Beats Solo Buds

RCP Track
$1,000 in cash
3 winners

RCP invites participants to tackle a real-world challenge focused on pipeline inline inspection (ILI) and integrity management. Using the provided business case, dataset, and pipeline inspection activity visuals, teams will develop innovative solutions that transform inspection data into actionable insights.

Your goal is to analyze the data and build a solution that helps improve pipeline monitoring, risk identification, operational efficiency, or decision-making. Projects may include data analytics platforms, predictive models, visualization dashboards, risk scoring systems, or other tools that deliver clear business value.

What we’re looking for:

Effective use of the provided data

Innovative and practical approaches

Clear insights and visualizations

Real-world applicability to pipeline operations or integrity management

Strong presentation and overall impact

Devpost Achievements

Submitting to this hackathon could earn you:

Judges

Company Sponsors and Club Leadership

Company Sponsors and Club Leadership

Judging Criteria

  • Practicality
    Does the problem you addressed already have a novel solution? How was it designed?
  • Creativity
    How unique and original is the idea and execution? How innovative is the idea behind the project?
  • Technicality
    What type of techniques did you use to solve the problems you faced during the hacking period? Did the proposed solution work as intended?
  • Presentation
    How was the team's visual design and presentation experience? How good was the pitch to our fellow judges?
  • Interdisciplinarity
    How many disciplines outside of computer science were used to understand the problem, formulate an approach, and deliver a product?

Questions? Email the hackathon manager

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Hackathon sponsors

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