DATES

Final submissions are due Sunday, November 9 at 8:00 AM. Submissions are only through Devpost.

ELIGIBILITY

We take inclusivity and safety seriously, and as part of that goal, we uphold the community guidelines shared by all MLH Member Events. To attend, you must agree to abide by the terms of the MLH Code of Conduct and MLH rules. You must also agree to abide by the terms of the MLH Contest Terms and Conditions and the MLH Privacy Policy. 

Directors, Organizers, Volunteers, Mentors, Sponsors, Vendors, and anyone affiliated with operations behind HackPrinceton are NOT eligible to submit a project. 

Maximum Team Size of 4 for prizes. No exceptions will be made. All Team members must be added to the Devpost submission in order to recieve prizes.

Projects must be submitted on or before the deadline Sunday, November 9 at 8:00 AM. This is a HARD stop and submissions after this time will NOT be considered.

PROJECT AND SUBMISSION RULES

Any violation of these rules will result in immediate disqualification of your team and project

  • Both individuals and teams can participate. Teams can have up to 4 members.
  • There is no cross-posting allowed - do not submit projects to other hackathons during the duration of HackPrinceton.
  • You must submit a project that was built during November 7 at 8:00 PM ET - November 9 at 8:00 AM ET, 2025. Projects submitted outside of this period will be disqualified.
  • All projects must submit their code in a public GitHub repository and link it the Devpost GitHub URL submission question. 
  • All code must be uploaded BEFORE the deadline and linked to Devpost — project demos with a working product yet have no code uploaded will be disqualified
  • Public frameworks and libraries are allowed, but submitting only copied code will result in project disqualification.
  • If you use public frameworks or libraries, you must credit them in the README.md file and your Devpost submission page and clearly distinguish your contributions. Overly embellishing your contributions -- in Devpost, Github, or your pitch -- may result in project disqualification.
  • Each hacker is only allowed to contribute to one project during this hackathon.
  • You may only opt into ONE of the four HackPrinceton tracks. However, you are free to opt-in to any number of our sponsor tracks in addition to one of our tracks.
  • Judging will occur in-person and every submission is required to conduct a maximum 2-minute presentation in front of judges during the judging period (9:30 AM - 2 PM on Sunday, November 9). Projects will be judged and seen multiple times during this period. Table numbers will be assigned during the hackathon.
  • You may not embellish project presentations during judging.
  • You may only submit to this hackathon if you have registered and checked in for HackPrinceton Fall 2025.

JUDGING CRITERIA

Your project will be viewed by at least three general judges. You may be judged additional times for opt-in prizes. You will be judged holistically and based on the following criteria:

Creativity

How unique is the concept behind the hack? Does it address a problem you didn’t even know existed? Does it address a common problem in a creative way or with an intuitive algorithm? What is this hack’s “ah-ha” moment?

Utility

Does this hack function? If so, how in-depth is its functionality? How likely would you be to frequently use this hack in its current state in your own life?

Charity

Does this hack address a specific societal need? If so, how well does it address it? What contributions does this hack make in the nation’s service and the service of humanity?

Avidity

How excited do the team members seem about the final state of their project? Passion can be demonstrated through their presentation, the project’s description on Devpost, the future plans they have for their hack, or an overall polished program.