HackPSU is Penn State's student-run hackathon and the largest technology event at Penn State. Join us and hundreds of other students from across the world for 24 hours of innovation, creation, and fun! From seasoned coding veterans to first-time hackers in any major or field, students of all skill levels will find technologically engaging challenges, professional networking, educational resources, and plenty of entertainment throughout our event!
At HackPSU, participants can discover their ability to create change by developing technology to solve real-world problems through collaboration with your peers and industry professionals. They gain new technical skills by attending workshops and taking on challenges. Our games and performances scheduled throughout the event give participants an opportunity to take a break and will be sure to keep them entertained. The whole event is a great way to meet new peers, network with our sponsor companies, and have a total blast!
Requirements
All projects must be submitted by 12:00PM (noon) on Sunday, October 13th. Participants will have until the end of hacking time at 1:45PM on Sunday to continue editing their submissions, but they must be in place by noon to allow time to assign tables at the judging exposition.
All code written for your submission must be attached to this submission (preferably by linking to a public GitHub repository).
All team members must be listed on the submission so that prizes can be awarded accordingly.
To be eligible for prizes, at least one team member must present your project at the judging exposition, but the expo is not the only criterion for judging. The quality of the Devpost submission also plays a large part in our judges' deliberation, so make sure not to neglect it!
Each team is only allowed to submit 1 project.
Projects can be disqualified at the organizers' discretion. Reasons might include but are not limited to breaking the rules, breaking the Code of Conduct, or other unsporting behavior.
Prizes
HackPSU Grand Prize
The standard HackPSU experience: work together alone or in a team to build something awesome! All monetary prizes will be split among the winning team members equally.
1st Place: $300
2nd Place: $150
3rd Place: $100
Winners will also get MLH Winner Pins.
Snap AR Challenge
Create a Lens on Spectacles that pushes the boundaries of wearable AR. Whether it's leveraging AI, promoting health, building dream worlds, or solving everyday problems, showcase how Spectacles can enhance real-world experiences in innovative ways.
PRIZES: 1st place - Nintendo switch, 2nd place - beats solo buds, 3rd place -- alexa power bank
Nittany AI Challenge
Use the power of AI/ML/GenAI to address a problem in the fields of health, humanitarianism, education, and/or the environment.
TEAM PRIZES
1st place will win a $99 Amazon gift card for each team member up to 5 members.
2nd place will win a $50 Amazon gift card for each team member up to 5 members.
3rd place will win a $25 Amazon gift card for each team member up to 5 members.
Most Creative Implementation of Generative AI
Peraton will award a prize to the Most Creative Implementation of Generative AI
Prize: Peraton Backpack with Swag and $100 Amazon Gift Card for each member of the team
Mastering Career Success
Challenge: Create a platform that helps students identify the best steps to take to achieve desired career aspirations and opportunities based on different educational pairings and backgrounds.
Best RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) chatbot
Develop a RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) chatbot. Participants will develop a chatbot to answer user questions based on the ICDS user guide.
Chatbot will be graded based on a 10 question ‘quiz’ that ICDS technical staff will test the model on. This, in addition to UX and proper design principles will be the overall rubric grading that will take place for the challenge scoring.
ICDS developed press release on winning team’s submission from HackPSU weekend to be published on ICDS website and other Penn State media channels.
Social media promotion on ICDS branded channels for winning team’s submission.
LinkedIn endorsement referencing winning team’s submission.
Presentation invite to a future ICDS Lunch and Learn where winning team will present their winning submission to ICDS leadership team and discuss careers in HPC.
Best Use of MongoDB Atlas
M5GO IoT Starter Kit
MongoDB Atlas takes the leading modern database and makes it accessible in the cloud! Get started with a $50 credit for students (https://mlh.link/mongodb) or sign up for the Atlas free forever tier, no credit card required (https://mlh.link/mongodb-free). 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 (https://mlh.link/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.
Best DEI Hack sponsored by Fidelity
Fidelity Branded Wireless Charger
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!
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://mlh.link/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.
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!
Best AI Project with Databricks Open Source
Assorted Lego Sets
Databricks is an open analytics platform that helps you build, deploy, and maintain large scale data & AI solutions! Whether you’re working with large language models using Mosaic AI, storing data with Databricks Data Lakes, or deploying GenAI powered applications using MLflow, Databricks Open Source software has the tools you need to make your hackathon project state of the art.
Build an AI powered project utilizing Databricks Open Source projects like the ones mentioned, or Databricks friendly Open Source projects like LanceDB and Llama Index, for a chance to win some amazing prizes for you and your teammates! Check out the following link to see all qualifying Databricks' Open Source technologies.
Sauce Labs Hot Sauce Raffle
Sauce Labs Swag Bag
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://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!
Devpost Achievements
Submitting to this hackathon could earn you:
Judges
HackPSU Organizers
HackPSU
Judging Criteria
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Knowledge and Growth
Did the team learn something new? Did they use unfamiliar software or dive into an unfamiliar subject area? Does the team demonstrate knowledge of the subject matter gained during the hackathon? -
Clarity
Did the team convey their ideas in a way that is understandable to the audience? Is their problem and proposed solution well-stated? How effectively does the team demonstrate the capabilities of their solution? -
Implementation
Is the project functional and easy to operate for the target demographic? Is the solution viable and effective in addressing the problem statement? Does it reflect the quality of the outcome? -
Technical Skills
Is the project technically challenging relative to the team size? How intricate is the solution? Did developing this solution properly challenge the group? -
Creativity and Originality
Is the project novel, original and not-obvious? Does it approach a problem from an unusual or different perspective?
Questions? Email the hackathon manager
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