The world's best interdisciplinary hackathon - Hacktech!

The world's best interdisciplinary hackathon, held at Caltech in Pasadena, CA! Meet hackers from all over the world and create projects to solve problems at the intersections of fields ranging from education to games/entertainment using anything from hardware to machine learning, all the while having a fantastic time.

View full rules

Prizes

$13,127 in prizes

[Microsoft] Best Use of Microsoft Technologies

Each member of the winning team receives a Surface Pro.

[Disney] Best Hack Using Marvel API or Disney Open Source

Each member of the winning team receives a Sphero R2-D2 App-Enabled Droid and a Disneyland Park experience (includes 2 tickets to Disneyland, and a VIP park experience).

[SapientRazorfish] Best Use of a Conversational Interface

Each member of the winning team receives a Echo Spot.

[1517 Fund] Most Unique Hack

The winning team receives a $1000 grant and mentorship to continue their project post-hackathon.

[eBay] Best Hack for eBay APIs (and Earn $$ too!)

Each member of the winning team receives a $500 eBay gift card plus anything they make as an affiliate on the eBay Partner Network!

[Twilio] Best Use of Twilio API

Each member of the winning team receives an Amazon Echo.

Best Hardware Hack

Each member of the winning team will receive a quadcopter drone with a 720p HD camera.

Best Education Hack

Each member of the winning team will receive an Amazon Fire HD 8.

Best Machine Learning Hack

Each member of the winning team will receive a mechanical keyboard. Sponsored by AWS.

Most Aesthetic/Well-designed Hack

Each member of the winning team will receive a drawing tablet.

Best Game/Entertainment Hack

Each member of the winning team receives a $50 Steam gift card.

Amazon Web Services - Best Use of AWS

$250 AWS Credit

Best Domain Name from Domain.com

Raspberry Pi & PiHut Essentials Kit

Best IoT Hack Using a Qualcomm Device

DragonBoard 410C + power source for each team member

Eligibility

Max team size: 4

Judges

Yisong Yue
Machine Learning Professor @ Caltech

Anima Anandkumar
Principle Scientist @ Amazon AI

Claire Ralph
Director of Outreach @ Caltech CMS

Rosemary Macedo
CIO @ QS Investors

Jesse Kremenak
Physics PhD Candidate @ University of Missouri

Vivian Zheng
Software Engineer @ Google

Hai Mai
Software Engineer @ Google

Jasmine Sears
Research Scientist @ Facebook

Fred Zhao
Software Engineer @ Facebook

Will Yu
Software Engineer @ Facebook

Ryan Batterman
Software Engineer @ Facebook

Gavy Aggarwal
Software Engineer @ Facebook

Mike Qian
Software Engineer @ Facebook

Judging Criteria

Usability
How usable is your hack in its current state? Strive to create a functioning project even if it doesn't have a ton of features!
Interdisciplinary
Does your hack combine principles from across different fields? Live up to our theme and make a hack that explore the intersection of computer science with other fields!
Creativity
How creative is your hack? Try to approach the problem you are trying to solve from a novel angle!
Polish
Is your hack polished? Create a hack that looks as great as it functions!