Welcome to HackUTD: Ripple Effect, the 2nd largest 24-hour university hackathon in the US! This is a weekend-long event where you have 24 hours to build software, hardware, and more around a problem or idea. You can team up with people you have known forever or people you just met. Whether you're a frequent hackathon attendee or just getting started, we'd love to see what you can make. Join us for workshops taught by industry leaders, fun events/games, free food, and limited-edition swag items! And, most importantly, an extremely enriching learning experience.
Note on prizes: Each member of the winning teams will get a prize
Requirements
What to Build
Build almost anything you want! If you want to win prizes, build something that satisfies sponsor's challenge statements, which you can find a detailed list of on our hackerpack once hacking starts.
Team Registration
Your team needs to be registered by 11:00pm on Saturday (11/16). Don’t worry, you do not have to have your whole project done by this time. You will be able to edit your submission after the first submit. This is just to make sure your team is registered on Devpost. You will have until 12:00pm on Sunday to fully submit your project.
Submission
Your project needs to be finalized by noon (12:00pm) on Sunday! No edits can be made to your project after that time. Make sure you have at least the following:
- Project Title and Description
- Code Repository or Zip
- Challenges/Tracks you are submitting to
- Demo Video (should ONLY be a demo, maximum of 2 minutes)
You can only submit to a maximum of 2 sponsor challenge statements! (But you can submit to as many non-sponsor tracks as you want). Any challenge with [MLH] at the start does not count towards this limit.
Prizes
PNC Bank
1st – Nintendo Switch Bundles
2nd – Airpods
3rd – JBL speakers
Pinata
1st – AirPods Max
2nd – Apple Watch Series 10
3rd – Apple HomePod Mini
EOG Resources
1st – Nintendo Switch
2nd – Mechanical Keyboards
CBRE
1st - $250 Amazon Gift Card
2nd - $150 Amazon Gift Card
3rd - $75 Amazon Gift Card
Infosys
1st - Apple Airpods Pro 2 + Fast-Track consideration for Infosys InStep Summer Internship in Richardson, Texas (Internships valued at 8,000)
Goldman Sachs
1st - Apple AirPod Max
2nd - Apple TV Device
3rd - Gift Card
Frontier
1st - Apple TV + $100 Digital Gift Card
2nd - Apple TV
3rd - $50 Digital Gift Card
Toyota
1st - $500 gift card
2nd - $300 gift card
3rd - $150 gift card
Samba Nova
1st - $300 Amazon Gift Card
2nd - $200 Amazon Gift Card
3rd - $100 Amazon Gift Card
Veolia
1st - Airpods Pros 2
2nd - EPOMAKER Ajazz AK820 Pro 75% Mechanical Keyboard
Poyo's Prize
1st - Macbook Air M2
General
1st - BenQ Programming Monitor
2nd - Oculus Quest 3
3rd - Ninja CREAMi
Best Design
Everyone loves a pretty interface, but apps and ideas are often created with little thinking in regards to their users. This track will be judged not only on how good your project submission looks from a UI perspective, but also on how much the design of the application showcases your thought behind the UX (user experience).
1st - FujiFilm Instax Mini 11 Instant Camera
Hardware
1st - Anker Power Bank
Best Beginner
1st - Bambu Lab A1 mini 3D Printer
[MLH] Best Use of Streamlit
Arduino Tiny ML Kit
Want to take your Python skills to the next level? Streamlit(https://mlh.link/streamlit) is an open-source Python library that makes it easy to share and build custom web apps for machine learning, data science, and more. Instead of writing Python scripts without a UI, you can create a beautiful web app, complete with widgets and data visualizations, and deploy it for free to the Streamlit Community Cloud(https://hackp.ac/streamlit-deploy). You can even build a fully functional LLM-powered app with just 25 lines of code! Hack with Streamlit this weekend for your chance to win an Arduino Tiny ML Kit for you and each member of your team.
[MLH] Best .Tech Domain Name
Blue Snowball Microphone & a Free .Tech Domain Name for up to 10 years!
Make your Team's Achievements timeless: Win a .Tech Domain Name for up to 10 years to Showcase and Expand Your Project, Plus 4 Blue Snowball Mics for Effortless Collaboration on Zoom, empowering you to build even more cool things together!
[MLH] Best AI Application Built with Cloudflare
Arduino Kit
Cloudflare is one of the world’s largest networks enabling hackers like you to build, deploy, and deliver trusted applications, no matter where you are! With Cloudflare, you’ll have all the building blocks to create a full-stack application; from C3 (create Cloudflare command line) instance deployment to object storage. You can even run GenAI (LLMs, text to image, Voice to text etc..) in the cloud and leverage your AI functionality via API requests using Cloudlfare’s Workers AI! Enjoy Cloudflare’s generous free tier to get started at no cost! This weekend, we want you to build an AI Application utilizing Cloudflare’s numerous services for a chance to win Arduino Kits for you and your team!
[MLH] Best Use of Terraform
Keychron K8 Wireless Keyboard
HashiCorp Terraform is a source available infrastructure as code (IaC) tool that makes building, deploying, and managing your projects even easier! Whether you’re working in the cloud or using local resources, Terraform can make managing and configuring your application simple and organized. From deploying Machine Learning models to spinning up virtual containers for your web applications, Terraform supports a wide array of cloud providers and services, taking the guesswork out of your next hackathon project. Dive into the documentation(https://mlh.link/terraform-docs) and discover all the ways Terraform can take the way you hack to the next level!
Terraform’s community edition(https://mlh.link/hashicorp-signup) is free to use with no credit card required! Utilize Terraform in your hackathon project this weekend for a chance to win some awesome Hashicorp prizes for you and each of your teammates!
[MLH] Sauce Labs Hot Sauce Raffle
Sauce Labs Swag Bag (Backpack, Beanie, bottle of hot sauce)
Sauce Labs(https://mlh.link/saucelabs-docs) 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://mlh.link/SauceRaffle) for a chance to win some awesome swag including a backpack, beanie, and a bottle of Sauce Labs hot sauce!
You must be present at closing ceremony to win, or a new raffle winner will be chosen.
Guided Track
1 Year Subscription of NordVPN + NordPass
Best Devpost
Most Relatable
Best Solo Hack
Devpost Achievements
Submitting to this hackathon could earn you:
Judges
Jury
HackUTD
Judging Criteria
-
Innovation & Creativity
How unique or original is the project idea? Does it present a new solution to a problem or use technology in an unexpected way? -
Technical Complexity
How technically challenging is the project? Did the team push the boundaries with complex algorithms, integrations, or hardware? -
Completeness
Does the project work as intended? Are there any major bugs or broken features? -
Design
How user-friendly and visually appealing is the project? Is the interface intuitive and easy to navigate? -
Impact
Does the project address a real problem, and could it be used in a real-world context? -
Judging Platform: Jury
Judging will be expo style where you will demo your project for 3-5 minutes to one or more judges, depending on how many track you applied to. Some judges will be sponsors (for sponsor tracks). Others could be professors or hackathon veterans. -
Presentation
How well did the team communicate their project and its purpose? Did they clearly explain the problem, solution, and technical choices?
Questions? Email the hackathon manager
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