There are two mandatory participation times:

1. Overnight Lock-In Period

  • From 7 PM on Saturday, March 22, 2025, to 7 AM on Sunday, March 23, 2025, all participants must remain in Douglass Hall (the official hacking space).

  • Leaving the venue during this time will result in immediate disqualification.

2. Judging & Submission Period

  • From 12 PM to 6:30 PM on Sunday, March 23, 2025, all team members must be present for judging.

  • If you are not present during the judging period, your project submission will be disqualified, and you will not be eligible for any prizes.

Hackers must abide by the BisonBytes 2025 Hackathon Rules:

  1. Maximum team size is 4 people per team and minimum team size is 2 people

  2. Teams should be made up exclusively of students who are not organizers, volunteers, judges, sponsors, or in any other non hacker position at the event.

  3. All team members should be present at the event. Leaving the venue for some time to hack elsewhere is fine, but prior notice must be given to other team members and also, location change is restricted to the locations marked out by the organizers.

  4. Teams can receive advice and support from organizers, volunteers, sponsors, and other participants.

  5. All work on a project must be done during the hackathon—no prior development is allowed.

  6. Teams do not need to create something completely innovative. Hacks can be based on existing ideas, but they must present an original approach that aligns with a given prompt or provides a meaningful improvement.

  7. Teams can work on an idea that they have worked on before (as long as they do not reuse code).

  8. Teams can use libraries, frameworks, or open-source code in their projects. Working on a project before the event and open-sourcing it for the sole purpose of using the code during the event is against the spirit of the rules and is not allowed.

  9. Teams must stop hacking once the time is up. However, teams are allowed to debug and make small fixes to their programs after time is up. e.g. If during demoing your hack you find a bug that breaks your application and the fix is only a few lines of code, it's okay to fix that. Making large changes or adding new features is not allowed.

  10. Projects that violate the Code of Conduct are not allowed.

  11. If you are caught cheating, submitting plagiarized work, or copying an existing project without proper adaptation, you will be disqualified and banned from all future BisonBytes hackathons.

  12. Teams can be disqualified from the competition at the organizers' discretion. Reasons might include but are not limited to breaking the hackathon rules, the Competition Rules, breaking the Code of Conduct, or other unsporting behavior.

  13. Howard University is a dry campus, and participants are strictly prohibited from possessing, consuming, or distributing alcohol, weapons, smoking materials, or any other prohibited substances. Violating this rule will result in immediate disqualification, removal from the premises by security, and further consequences as deemed necessary. 

  14. All participants must wear their BisonBytes 2025 lanyard/badge at all times during the hackathon. A valid ID is required at check-in to receive your badge. Failure to wear your badge may result in removal from the venue.