10 YEARS OF HACK THE 6IX
Since 2015, Hack the 6ix has provided an unforgettable hacking experience to all of its attendees. This year, we're aiming bigger and better than ever for our 10th anniversary, aiming to host its largest-ever fully in person event. The weekend of August 2-4 will be filled with learning, connecting, and networking with almost 400 other passionate hackers. Whether you’ve just learned what a computer is or you’re a seasoned hackathon veteran, Hack the 6ix is a place for everyone.
VISION
As a hackathon organized by students from universities across Canada, we hope to bring together the nation’s talent by providing an interactive environment where attendees can be free to innovate and create under the guidance of our industry mentors. We aim to continue to successfully expand our organization to provide more learning opportunities for students as well as more corporate exposure for companies.
COMMITMENT TO DIVERSITY
Hack the 6ix is committed to being an advocate for diversity by creating an inclusive and equitable environment for innovation. Since 2020, we've taken great strides towards empowering more participation of women in technology through keynote speakers, panels with company representatives, workshops, and networking sessions. We want to continue with the same energy and hope to inspire more young women and underrepresented groups to explore careers in the technology sector and help them achieve their full potential.
Requirements
DEVPOST SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
Entries are considered if and only if submitted via Devpost before the announced closing time.
Hackers will be pitching in person to live judges during the designated judging period. Only projects that have pitched in person along with submitting on Devpost will be considered.
On your Devpost submission, we highly recommend, but don't require, a video submission showcasing a short demo of your project. Additionally, we highly recommend an extensive writeup detailing the process of making your project, the challenges you faced, and the technologies you used. All projects must submit a public GitHub repository showcasing all of the code used for the project.
RULES
1. Teams must consist of 1-4 hackers who have been accepted to Hack the 6ix 2024.
2. All team members must have checked-in at the venue during the designated check-in period or at some point during the event.
3. All programming or any construction done on the project must occur during the hacking period, which starts at 10:00 PM EST on August 2nd, 2024.
4. The project must not be submitted to any other hackathons.
5. Your team must pitch in person to a panel of in person judges during the designated judging period.
Prizes
Hack the 6ix: 1st Place
This prize is awarded to the best project created at Hack the 6ix 2024.
Each member of the winning team will receive:
- Apple Airpods Pro Gen 2
- 1 year Taskade starter subscription
- MLH Winner Pin
Please refer to the judging criteria below.
Hack the 6ix: 2nd Place
This prize is awarded to the 2nd best project created at Hack the 6ix 2024.
Each member of the winning team will receive:
- Apple Homepod Mini
- MLH Winner Pin
Please refer to the judging criteria below.
Hack the 6ix: 3rd Place
This prize is awarded to the 3rd best project created at Hack the 6ix 2024.
Each member of the winning team will receive:
- Fujifilm Instax Camera 11 + 20 film each
- MLH Winner Pin
Please refer to the judging criteria below.
Hack the 6ix: Best Game Hack
This prize is awarded to the best Video Game project created at Hack the 6ix 2024.
Each member of the winning team will receive:
- $50 Best Buy Gift Card
Hack the 6ix: Best Beginner Hack
Did you know that Hack the 6ix 2024 has 12.77641278% beginners? This prize is awarded to the best project created by a team of which beginners (1st time hackers) are the majority (>50%).
Each member of the winning team will receive:
- JBL Go 4 Portable Speaker
Hack the 6ix: Best Environmental Hack
Even though Toronto doesn't have any sharks, it has plush ones! This year at Hack the 6ix, you could win this prize by making a project that combats the many challenges our environment currently faces. Make sure that one day, sharks don't only come in plushie form. This prize is awarded to the best project that aims to save the environment.
Each member of the winning team will receive
- One (1) BLAHAJ
blahajgang4lyfe
Rockstar Energy: Best Music Hack
Unleash your inner rockstar and revolutionize the music industry! The Rockstar Energy: Best Music Hack prize is awarded to the team that creates an innovative hack aimed at enhancing the music experience in a groundbreaking way. Whether you’re crafting new tools for music creation, developing cutting-edge technology for live performances, or inventing novel ways to enjoy and interact with music, this prize is for you. Show us how your hack can transform any aspect of the musical journey—be it composing, producing, performing, or consuming music.
Each member of the winning team will receive:
- Rockstar Energy swag pack
Warp: Best Developer Tool
Build a hack that focuses on improving the developer experience in some meaningful way - this could be tackling any part of the development lifecycle (creating, modifying or testing software)!
Each member of the winning team will receive:
- Keychron C3 Pro Mechanical Keyboard!
If you're on Mac/Linux, we'd love for you to try out Warp as a terminal (https://warp.dev)! Feel free to send us your feedback in our Slack channel or public GitHub repository! Note that this will have no impact on judging.
Warp: Best Developer Tool Runner-Up
This prize is awarded to the runner-up project of Warp's Best Devtool Hack.
Each member of the winning team will receive:
- Warp Swag
If you're on Mac/Linux, we'd love for you to try out Warp as a terminal (https://warp.dev)! Feel free to send us your feedback in our Slack channel or public GitHub repository! Note that this will have no impact on judging.
MLH: Best Use of MongoDB Atlas
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.
Each member of the winning team will receive:
- M5GO IoT Starter Kit
MLH: Best Use of Auth0
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!
Each member of the winning team will receive:
- Wireless Headphones & Battery Pack
MLH: Best Use of MATLAB
MATLAB and Simulink are computational tools used at over 100,000 businesses, government and university sites in over 190 countries. Use MATLAB and/or Simulink exclusively or integrate them into another tool for your next hack to win an exclusive MathWorks branded Wireless YoYo Speaker! You can also claim a free MATLAB software license to get started.
Each member of the winning team will receive:
- Wireless YoYo Speaker
MLH: Best DEI Hack sponsored by Fidelity
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!
Each member of the winning team will receive:
- Fidelity Branded Wireless Charger
MLH: Most Creative Adobe Express Add-On
Adobe Express is an AI-first, all-in-one content creation app that makes it fast, easy and fun to design and share videos, images, PDFs, flyers, TikToks, logos and more. Best of all, it’s free to get started.
Add-ons in Adobe Express are simply extensions and integrations that are built upon very powerful APIs. These APIs provide access to the user’s document, connections to third-party tools, and so much more. You can extend the functionality of Adobe Express using add-ons to unlock new capabilities and workflows. Check out these add-ons to see what other cool ideas developers have implemented!
For this hackathon, we want you to build a creative add-on for Adobe Express. Users are looking for add-ons that involve assets like stickers or icons, work with presentations and data visualization, and work in roles like marketing and e-commerce. Build an Adobe Express add-on this weekend for a chance to win a Wacom Wireless Drawing Tablet and JBL Go3 Speaker for you and each member of your team!
*You can also submit to this prize category if you have a prototype idea for an add-on or have a partially completed add-on. As long as you’ve built with Adobe Express, we want to see your hack!
Each member of the winning team will receive:
- Wacom Wireless Drawing Tablet
- JBL Go3 Speaker
MLH: Sauce Labs Hot Sauce Raffle
Sauce Labs empowers you to develop, test, and deliver top-tier web and mobile apps quickly and efficiently. Their unified platform makes automated testing and error monitoring easy to do, enabling you to save time building your hackathon project! Let Sauce Labs help resolve any issues with your code so you can get back to building an award winning hack. Make sure your project is hackathon-tested by signing up for a Sauce Labs account!
To spice things up even more, we're running the Sauce Labs Hot Sauce naming raffle and selecting up to 4 individual winners at this event. To qualify come up with a cool hot sauce name and submit it to the Sauce Labs raffle form (https://hackp.ac/saucelabs-rafflesubmission-form) for a chance to win some awesome swag including a backpack, beanie, and a bottle of Sauce Labs hot sauce!
4 individual winners will receive:
- Sauce Labs Swag Bag
Devpost Achievements
Submitting to this hackathon could earn you:
Judges
Sonu Kapoor
Senior Angular Developer @ citi
Ahmed Soliman
Senior Software Engineer @ VTS
Brian Lian
Board of Directors @ Hack the 6ix
Ankil Patel
Software Engineer @ Stealth
Jay Vakil
Software Developer @ Ontario Government
Thomas Smail
Data Engineering @ Amazon
Sina Dezfuli
Compiler Engineer @ Qualcomm
Sohel Shekh
Back End Developer @ Zeuty
Raghavendran Ramakrishnan
Tech Lead @ Snowflake
Ayesha Arshad
Electrical Engineering @ McMaster
Raheel Ahmed
Digital Public Engagement @ Metrolinx
Anh Le
Sina Zargaran
Co-founder @ Campfire
Jaskirat Singh
Software Design Engineer @ Newgen
Advait Maybhate
Software Engineer @ Warp
Maria Dunning
Hackathon Community Manager @ MLH
Sammy Lam
Software Engineer @ Mimecast
Sohaila Ali
Computer Science @ Ontario Tech
Judging Criteria
-
TECHNICAL DIFFICULTY
How challenging was it to develop the project? Were there significant technical hurdles that required unique solutions? (e.g. how much does it rely on APIs? How much of the heavy lifting are external libraries/API doing?) -
UNIQUENESS
Is the project creative and original? Is it commonly seen at hackathons, or is it something new? -
DESIGN
For a software project, have the developers taken user experience into account? Is the user interface intuitive and well-designed? For a hardware project, is the human-computer interaction sophisticated? -
COMPLETENESS
Is the project polished and in fully working order? Did the team accomplish all of their goals, or did they compromise?
Questions? Email the hackathon manager
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