During 36 caffeine-filled, sleepless hours, students from the University of Tennessee and elsewhere will brainstorm, build, break, test, and deploy whatever they can imagine, for the chance to win amazing prizes.

There will also be plenty of time to interact with professional mentors and engineers, meet recruiters, and listen to great tech talks and tutorials from sponsors.

Also, don't forget about all of the free food, snacks, caffine, swag, games, and cool people that's going to be there!

For more information, including our FAQ and the link to join our Slack channel, go to volhacks.org.

If you are a sponsor or know a sponsor that would like to help make this event happen, please email sponsor@volhacks.org.

Eligibility

Individuals over 18 years in age, who are undergraduate or graduate students at a college or university, or who graduated within the last year. Teams may have up to four members. You also must physically be present to win.

Requirements

Build whatever you can imagine, as long as it abides by the MLH Code of Conduct and does not violate any University of Tennessee, Knoxville policies.

Specifically, we encourage the submission of hacks composed of software, hardware, VR/AR, IoT/embedded devices, and anything you can conjure up with your laptop and what you have available (which includes MLH's Hardware Lab).

Additionally, we ask that your hack schowcases your work from this weekend. While you may continue working on a preexisting side project, hackathon project, or any other kind of project, please make sure that you have contributed something of value during VolHacks 2019. If you are continuing work on a project, explicitly state what's new and why this contribution is important within the scope of your project both here on Devpost and when pitching your project to the judges.

See the Judging Criteria section for what the presentation round judges and the final round judges will be looking for in your hack.

Note: All prizes listed are given to each member of the winning team, so make sure everyone is listed as a contributer on your project's submission.

Hackathon Sponsors

Prizes

$7,551 in prizes
1st Place
1 winner

Prizes: Nintendo Switch

2nd Place
1 winner

Prizes: Nikon COOLPIX B500 Digital Camera

3rd Place
1 winner

Prizes: Amazon Echo Plus

Hacker's Choice
1 winner

Determined by popular vote on Devpost
Prizes: Roku Express

Organizer's Choice
1 winner

Prizes: Razer Cynosa Chroma Gaming Keyboard

Best Rookie Hack
1 winner

To be eligible, this must be the first hackathon for all team members AND all team members must be in their first two years of their majors.
Prizes: Toshiba Canvio Basics 1TB Portable External Hard Drive

Best Presentation
1 winner

Prizes: HP 23.8-inch IPS Monitor

Best Solo Hack
1 winner

To be eligible, you must be on a team by yourself.
Prize: 40-inch 1080p Smart LED Roku TV

Most Useless Hack
1 winner

Prizes: Stainless Steel Lock Pick Set

Most Market Ready Hack
1 winner

Prizes: Anker PowerCore 10000mAh Portable Charger

Best UX Hack
1 winner

Prizes: Nulaxy Bluetooth Car FM Transmitter

Most Social Good Hack
1 winner

Prizes: JetBrains and WolframOne Passes

JTV Sponser Prize: Best Hardware/IoT Hack
1 winner

Prizes: Arduino Starter Kit

Siemens Sponsor Hack: Best Healthcare Hack
2 winners

Asurion Sponsored Hack: Most Technical Hack
1 winner

Prizes: Mini Portable Printers

Bush's Beans Sponser Hack: Most Inovative
1 winner

Prizes: External SSD

Best use of Google Cloud
1 winner

Google Home Minis for each team member

Best Domain Name from Domain.com
1 winner

Domain.com branded backpack for each team member.

Best Automation Hack with UiPath
1 winner

Build an automation hack using UiPath! Each winning team member will receive a UiPath/MLH Branded Backpack and DROCON Drone!

Best use of MongoDB Atlas
1 winner

Create a hack using MongoDB Atlas to host a database in the cloud! Automate the provisioning and deployment process with ease, while focusing all your efforts on your hack. Projects built using MongoDB Atlas will be eligible to win an AirCharge Plus per team member.

Devpost Achievements

Submitting to this hackathon could earn you:

Judges

TBA

TBA

Judging Criteria

  • Creativity of the Idea and Finished Hack
    How novel and/or creative is the idea? How creatively was the hack made? Is the hack a new idea? For reference, if it's on https://github.com/mdnahian/Common-Hackathon-Projects, you're probably not the first one to do it.
  • Technical Depth of the Implementation
    How well is the hack implemented? How complex is the problem being solved? How elegant is the solution to the problem being solved? How much technical skill was required to build the hack? If you're new to hacking, does it show how much you've learned?
  • Usefulness and Functionality
    Does it work? How useful is the idea and hack presented? How much is the solution to the problem it is solving needed? How much money will this save? How many people will this help?
  • Pitch and Presentation
    How well was the demonstration given? How realistic was the demonstration in the context of the hack presented?
  • Impressiveness
    Is everyone blown away? Is your idea really awesome? Or did you implement it really well? Is it amazing how much you accomplished in just one weekend?

Questions? Email the hackathon manager

Tell your friends

Hackathon sponsors

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.