Dates

Building Begins: 8 PM on Friday, February 20, 2026

Hard Deadline for Project Submission: 8 AM on Sunday, February 22, 2026

Judging Period: 10 AM - 2 PM on Sunday, February 22

Closing Ceremony: 4 PM on Sunday, February 22  

Eligibility

To apply as a hacker, you must be a university/college student in Canada. Once accepted, you must abide by these rules to remain eligible as a hacker:

- Team Size Limit: Participation is capped at teams of up to 4 members. This ensures a level playing field and encourages effective collaboration.

- Hacker's Status: All team members must have the "attended" status on the hackathon website, indicating they were accepted into the hackathon and have checked in properly in person. This is essential to verify eligibility for participation and judging.

- Any code and design assets used in your project must be written between 8:00 PM EST on Friday, February 20, 2026, and 8:00 AM EST on Sunday, February 22, 2026.

- Your team's project must be submitted to DevPost to be eligible for judging.

- It is permitted and recommended to install any necessary software in advance. 

- It is permitted to plan your project out in advance.

- It is permitted to 3D-print parts or prepare other structural components for hardware projects in advance. However, assembly of hardware projects in advance is not permitted. Hardware will not necessarily be provided for use. 

- Plagiarism is not tolerated, and any teams with plagiarized work will be disqualified.

- Reusing code from any company or professional organization is not permitted. 

- You may use any publicly available libraries/packages/design assets.

Code with integrity! Final interpretation of all the rules included in this document is at the sole discretion of DeerHacks organizers, and any potential violations will be dealt with privately between the team and organizers.

Project and Submission Requirements

Your team must submit your project to Devpost to be eligible for judging. 

Submit a video in your Devpost project submission if you can't demo live, given a valid reason. A video must be between 2-4 minutes long. 

An in-person demo will be 7 minutes long in total: a 4-minute demo and 3 minutes for questions from the judges.  

Prizes

Cash prizes and more - coming soon! 

Judging Criteria and Winner Selection

Coming soon!