Over 36 caffeine-filled, sleepless hours, students from both the University of Tennessee and outside the university will brainstorm, build, break, test, and deploy whatever they imagine for the chance to win amazing prizes, while interacting with professional mentors and engineers, meeting recruiters, and listening to great tech talks and tutorials from sponsors. When not hacking, take a break to go to outside, meet new people, enjoy a cup stacking competition, pick up that sweet swag, and participate in other mini-games. Did we mention there will also be an excess of free food, hacker-controlled music, many snack breaks, unlimited drinks, and endless caffeine?
For more information, including our FAQ and the link to join our Slack channel, go to volhacks.org.
If you are a sponsor or know a sponsor that would like to help make this event happen, please email sponsor@volhacks.org.
Eligibility
Individuals over 18 years in age, who are undergraduate or graduate students at a college or university, or who graduated within the last year. Teams may have up to four members. You also must physically be present to win.
Requirements
Build whatever you can imagine, as long as it abides by the MLH Code of Conduct and does not violate any University of Tennessee, Knoxville policies.
Specifically, we encourage the submission of hacks composed of software, hardware, VR/AR, IoT/embedded devices, and anything you can conjure up with your laptop and what you have available (which includes MLH's Hardware Lab).
Additionally, we ask that your hack schowcases your work from this weekend. While you may continue working on a preexisting side project, hackathon project, or any other kind of project, please make sure that you have contributed something of value during VolHacks 2018. If you are continuing work on a project, explicitly state what's new and why this contribution is important within the scope of your project both here on Devpost and when pitching your project to the judges.
See the Judging Criteria section for what the presentation round judges and the final round judges will be looking for in your hack.
Note: All prizes listed are given to each member of the winning team, so make sure everyone is listed as a contributer on your project's submission.
Prizes
$26,572 in prizes
1st Place
Prizes: DJI Spark Drone with Remote Control
JetBrain Subscriptions
Year subscriptions of Wolfram|One Personal Edition and Wolfram|Alpha Pro
2nd Place
Prizes: GoPro 5 Hero Session with a bunch of mounts
Year subscriptions of Wolfram|One Personal Edition and Wolfram|Alpha Pro
3rd Place
Prizes: Amazon Echo Show
Year subscriptions of Wolfram|One Personal Edition and Wolfram|Alpha Pro
Asurion Sponsor Prize: Most Market Ready Hack
Asurion's Most Market Ready Hack will be judged by the Asurions representatives that will be attending VolHacks III. So make sure to stop by their sponsor table and say hi!
Prize: da Vinci Mini Wireless 3D Printer
SAIC Sponsor Prize
Prize: Nintendo Switch
JTV's Favorite Solo Hack
Chromebook
Best Presentation
Prizes: Presentation Clickers and Mini Projectors
Bush Bros: Best Sensor Hack
(2)
Best use of IoT based sensors
Prize: Skullcandy Hesh 2
Best Rookie Hack
To be eligible, this must be the first hackathon for all team members AND all team members must be in their first two years of their majors.
Prize: Philips Hue Starter Kit (2 White Bulbs)
VolHacks's Best Solo Hack
To be eligible, you must be on a team by yourself.
Sennheiser HD 599 Open Back Headphones
Hacker's Choice
Determined by popular vote on Devpost
Prize: Winner Outfitters Double Camping Hammock
Organizer's Choice
Prize: Cards Against Humanity
Most Innovative Hack
Western Digital 2TB Portable External Hard Drive
Most Useless Hack
(3)
Motion Activated Toilet Light
Best Mobile App Hack
Prize: Anker PowerCore13000mAh Powerbank
Top 7 Teams
(7)
Prize: Year subscriptions of Wolfram|One Personal Edition and Wolfram|Alpha Pro
Best Hardware / IOT Hack
Prize: ORIA Screwdriver Set -- Professional Electronics Repair Tool Kit (60pc)
Social Good Hack
Prize: Giant Jenga Set
Most Technical Hack
Prize: Gigabyte Mechanical Keyboard (Cherry Red)
Best UX Hack
AGS Wireless Laser Projection Bluetooth Virtual Keyboard
Best use of Google Cloud Platform
Prize: Google Home Minis for each team member
Best Domain Name from Domain.com
Prize: Raspberry Pi & PiHut Essential Kit for each team member
Best IoT Hack Using a Qualcomm Device
Prize: 410C Dragonboard for each team member
Best Chat Bot using Botkit & Cisco Webex Teams
Power banks for each team member
Cisco's Favorite Solo Hack
Prize: iPad and keyboard
Cisco's Best Duo Hack
Prizes: Apple TV
Best Social Good Hack from Fidelity Weekly Challenge
Devpost Achievements
Submitting to this hackathon could earn you:
How to enter
Register for our event at volhacks.org in advance. You should also click the blue "Register for this hackathon" button on this page at some point. And then show up September 28, 2018 to join us for a really hacking great event!
Judges
TBA
Judging Criteria
-
Creativity of the Idea and Finished Hack
How novel and/or creative is the idea? How creatively was the hack made? Is the hack a new idea? For reference, if it's on https://github.com/mdnahian/Common-Hackathon-Projects, you're probably not the first one to do it. -
Technical Depth of the Implementation
How well is the hack implemented? How complex is the problem being solved? How elegant is the solution to the problem being solved? How much technical skill was required to build the hack? If you're new to hacking, does it show how much you've learned? -
Usefulness and Functionality
Does it work? How useful is the idea and hack presented? How much is the solution to the problem it is solving needed? How much money will this save? How many people will this help? -
Pitch and Presentation
How well was the demonstration given? How realistic was the demonstration in the context of the hack presented? -
Impressiveness
Is everyone blown away? Is your idea really awesome? Or did you implement it really well? Is it amazing how much you accomplished in just one weekend?
Questions? Email the hackathon manager
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