Welcome to HooHacks, the 9th annual, premier hackathon at the University of Virginia! You will have 24 hours (starting on March 26th at 12 PM and ending on March 27th at 12 PM) to ideate, construct, and showcase the product you build from scratch along with other developers, engineers, and designers. Learn. Build. Achieve.

Requirements

Only submit to 1 prize track category. You may submit to any number of sponsor prizes, but you must describe why you are eligible. 

Hackathon Sponsors

Prizes

$10,295 in prizes

Best Overall

Win a Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 3 for each member of your team!

Best Beginner

The best beginner team wins an Echo Dot, a Sengled Color Bulb, and a Raspberry Pi! (1 per team member)

Best Art and Gaming Hack (2)

First place wins Switch Lites. Second place wins Logitech Gaming Mice. (1 per team member)

Best Finance Hack (2)

First place wins $250 cash per team member. Second place wins $250 total. First place is sponsored by Capital One.

Best Education Hack (2)

First place wins Apple Airpods (2nd Gen). Second place wins Merge AR/VR Headsets. (1 per team member)

Best Health Hack (2)

First place wins a FitBit Inspire 2 each. Second place wins scooters! (1 per team member)

Best Sustainability Hack (2)

First place wins $500 cash total. Second place wins $250 cash total. Sponsored by UVA Sustainable IT.

Best Data Science Hack (2)

First place wins a Keychron K2 keyboard. Second place wins an Echo Dot and Sengled Color Bulb. (1 per team member)

Best Accessibility and Empowerment Hack (2)

First place will receive $500 total and second place will receive $250 total

Best Use of Google Cloud - MLH

Build your hackathon project with a suite of secure storage, powerful compute, and integrated data analytics products provided by Google Cloud. See full list of products here: g.co/cloud. Each winning team member located in the US will receive a Google Cloud Swag Bag complete with a beanie, pillow, journal, socks and lanyards. International winners will receive a Google branded backpack.

Best Use of DeSo - MLH

DeSo is the official Web3 sponsor of the MLH Hackathon League and the first Layer 1 blockchain custom-built for decentralized social media applications. While blockchains like Avalanche or Solana cost $0.50+ to store just a 200-character post, the DeSo blockchain is built with custom indexing and storage optimizations which make it 10,000X cheaper to store social content on-chain! In order to qualify for the contest, you must launch an app that writes to the DeSo blockchain and/or implements DeSo identity. While social media apps are a great fit for DeSo, you can also build financial apps, marketplaces, and more on the DeSo blockchain. For inspiration on project ideas, you can check out some of the existing 200+ apps already live on DeSo at Bithunt.com as well as our DeSo APIs. The Best Use of DeSo gets $100 worth of $DESO coin & an exclusive DeSo branded tumbler!

Most Creative Use of Twilio - MLH

Twilio allows you to incorporate mobile messaging, phone calls and a ton of other awesome communication features right into your hackathon project using web service APIs. Are you building an e-commerce website and want to send text notifications or email confirmations once an order is completed? Or maybe your application needs to verify users based on their mobile numbers? Twilio makes all this possible and more. Build a hack that simplifies your life using any one of Twilio’s APIs for a chance to win a Twilio Swag Box and GameGo Console for you and each of your teammates!

Best CI/CD Application Using CircleCI - MLH

Have you ever wondered how professional developers from companies like Peloton & Samsung collaborate and ship code to production? For one, they use continuous integration and delivery (CI/CD) platforms like CircleCI to help automate testing, versioning, deployment and so much more. Whether you’re looking to learn a new skill, practice coding, or hack with friends, CircleCI can help you to utilize the best development practices possible when approaching a new project, however big or small. Use CircleCI in your next hack for a chance to win some awesome CircleCI swag, including a branded mug, beanie, socks and stickers!

Best Domain Name from Domain.com - MLH

Register a .tech domain name using Domain.com during the weekend. Each team may submit one entry per person on the team. Each winning team member will receive a PowerSquare Qi wireless phone charger.

Best Hardware Hack Sponsored by Digi-Key - MLH

Using your preferred hardware or hardware emulator, build a hack for your chance to win a Grove Beginner Kit, with embedded Arduino Uno compatible board. Each winning team member will receive a prize!

Sponsored Prize - echo3D

The winner will receive 3-months access to all Business Plan features of the echo3D platform!

Raffle Prizes

We will be giving raffle prizes based on puzzle submissions and workshop attendance!

Devpost Achievements

Submitting to this hackathon could earn you:

Judges

TBD

TBD

Judging Criteria

  • UI/UX
    How does your project look?
  • Feasibility
    How likely is your project to be created in the real world?
  • Creativity
    How unique is your project?
  • Functionality
    How well does your project work?
  • Impact
    How much of a difference does your project make in the world?

Questions? Email the hackathon manager

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