Howdy, y'all! We're happy to announce our biggest event of the year, the UQCS Hackathon, will be on October 16th to 18th in Room 301 of the Advanced Engineering Building.
Form a team on Friday night, then spend two days building something cool — a game, a website, hardware, the sky's the limit. On Sunday, teams will present what they've done, with $2500 in prizes up for grabs! And don't worry about food for the weekend; we'll be supplying breakfast, lunch and dinner each day.
How to Hackathon
How to Hackathon with Alexander Blyth is on Tuesday October 13th (Facebook event). if you've never been to a Hackathon before, this will walk you through what to do at your first Hackathon and how to make the most of the weekend. Even if you've been to a hackathon before, come along for some hints and tips. It's pretty simple:
- Form your team
- Build something cool
- Eat Free Food
- Present what you have made
- Win prizes
Projects
In the past people have built websites, desktop apps, games, hardware, and even robots. Some past projects are on our showcase page. Still not sure what to do? Check out the ideas at the link below. If you have your own amazing idea, you can also add it and find teammates to work with!
UQCS Showcase Hackathon Project Ideas Submit Your Idea
Pricing
Tickets to the Hackathon are $15 for students and $20 for non-students (non-students are not eligible for prizes); for those that can't attend in person, tickets are $2. As usual, we will be supplying breakfast, lunch and dinner during the Hackathon too, so make sure to grab your tickets so we can know how many people to cater for. See you there!
Prizes
We'll have $2500 in prizes up for grabs across nine categories:
$1000 - Best Overall Project
The creators of the best project (as determined by our celebrity judges) will take home a whopping $1000 dollars (not to mention bragging rights)!
$500 - Best Overall Runner Up Project
The second placed team (as determined by our celebrity judges) will take home $500.
$200 - Best Newcomer Project
The best team consisting entirely of students in their first or second semester of university (in any discipline) will find themselves the proud owners of $200 to distribute between from themselves.
$200 - People's Choice
After presentations have concluded on the Sunday night, you'll have the chance to vote for your favourite project, the project with the most votes will take home 200 big ones.
$200 - Best Philanthropic Project
The best project (as determined by our celebrity judges) aimed at helping a philanthropic organisation or addressing a social justice problem will earn a nice $200 reward (who said being nice didn't pay off?).
$100 - Best Designed Project
The creator(s) of the project demonstrating the coolest visual design will take home their choice of $100 to spend on turtlenecks or a pirated PDF copy of Banksy's art book Wall and Piece.
$100 - Most Masochistic Project
The project that caused the most pain for its creators will earn them $100. It's not enough to make up for a weekend of self-inflicted misery, but it helps.
$100 - Best Hardware Project
Hardware projects are hard, it's in the name. Here's $100 for having the best one.
$100 - Best Interdisciplinary Project
UQCS likes to mix things up. The best project demonstrating skills or solving problems from other disciplines (science, math, and dare we say it... humanities) will be eligible for $100 cash.
Rules
There are a few rules you'll need to follow to be eligible for prizes:
- Teams must use some form of version control, in a new repository.
- Projects cannot be started early.
- Prize winners must be uploaded to the UQCS Showcase before payout.