Ship it!
Welcome to the 2026 Research Park Hackathon! Here are some helpful links:
| Award | Project |
|---|---|
| 1st Place* | |
| 2nd Place* | |
| 3rd Place* | |
| Most Creative | |
| Best User Experience |
*reserved for finalists
*prizes awarded
Build something that helps people.
🚀 Ship It: Live web application - Functioning live web application, reachable by anyone with an internet connection
- 📈 Insight Engine: Data-focused application - Charts, maps, dashboards that surface meaningful insights
- 🤖 For You: Recommendation system - Suggest content/actions based on user behavior or data
- 🔌 Plugged In: External data source - Integrates with APIs or third-party data
- 👥 Who Are You?: Multiple personas - Different user roles with distinct experiences/permissions (admin, user, etc.)
- 📍 Where Are You?: Location-based feature - Uses user location in a meaningful, non-trivial way
- 🌐 Mob Mentality: Crowd-sourced data - Users contribute and consume shared data
- 🔔 Ring Ring: Notifications / Alerts - Actions trigger alerts (email, SMS, in-app, etc.)
- 🧠 Make No Mistakes: AI / LLM incorporation - Uses AI for generation, classification, chat, etc.
- 💾 Memory Lane: Persistent state - Saves user actions, preferences, or history across sessions
- ⚡ Live Updates: Real-time updates - Application reflects changes dynamically without manual refresh
- 🔁 Connected Flow: Multi-step workflow - Users complete a sequence of actions that depend on each other
- 📜 Activity Feed: Tracking / logging - Tracks and displays user or system actions over time
- 8:30 AM: Hackathon Prompt Instructions @ EnterpriseWorks Atrium
- 9:00 AM: Hacking Begins @ various UIRP locations
- 10:00 PM: Submission Deadline
- 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM: EnterpriseWorks Atrium available for setup
- 12:00 PM - 12:50 PM: Science Fair - present to judges @ EnterpriseWorks Atrium
- 12:50 PM: Finalists announced (3 teams)
- 1:00 PM - 1:20 PM: Finalist presentations
- 1:25 PM: Awards announcement
When ready, submit projects here.
1. GitHub
Each team must submit a public GitHub repository. It must contain the following:
README.MD- Writeup explaing the submission
- Code
- Include all code written
- Applicable documentation
2. Website URL
Provide the URL for your live web application.
3. YouTube
Each team must upload a video to YouTube.
- Serves as the offline "pitch" for your submission
- Video must be between 2-3 minutes in length
- Published on YouTube by submission deadline (unlisted or public)
4. Presentation Teams selected as finalists (see schedule) will be required to do a live presenation to the judges' panel. All teams must submit a slideshow. This exact slideshow will be your presentation aid should your team be selected as a finalist.
- 3 minutes in length, 2 minutes allowed for Q&A
- Pitch and demo your project however you see fit
- You are encouraged to use all AI tools at your disposal
- For those using work laptops, be wary of your company’s policy
- Copying code from other Hackathon teams is prohibited
Judges will assess submissions by the following three pillars.
Judges will look for:
- A live URL or deployed experience
- A working core user flow
- A clear Minimum Viable Product
Judges will look for:
- Thoughtful handling of user data, privacy, or permissions
- No obvious exposed secrets, private data, or unsafe flows
- User Roles created and scoped to appropriate information
- Input validation, disclaimers, guardrails, authentication, rate limits, or error handling where relevant
Judges will look for:
- Clear explanation of the user and problem
- Strong walkthrough of the application
- Focused feature choices
- Ability to explain tradeoffs
- Clear next steps if given more time
- Honest discussion of limitations and why those choose to make this given the time constraint.
- Start small, your development time is very limited
- Prioritize creativity over complexity
- Utilize every team member thoroughly
- Build something you:
- understand
- use frequently
- find interesting
- Play to your team’s strengths!