Rules

Here are our rules for submission at HooHacks 2023. Breaking these could lead to disqualification.

Every submission must be submitted in one prize track. Although projects can qualify for multiple, choose one. If you want help deciding which track to submit to, message an organizer at HooHacks and we can let you know.
You may submit to as many sponsor prizes as your project fits under, but you should submit to a sponsor prize only if you qualify for that sponsor prize.
You may have a team of as many as 4 people, but no more.
You may not submit to other hackathons with the project you built at HooHacks and vice versa.
You may not edit your code before hacking starts (12 PM EST March 25th) and you may not edit your code after hacking ends (12PM EST March 26th).
You may not submit a project without your teammates' permission.
If you take significant code from a non-HooHacks source (i.e. not from a workshop or mentor), note down the link for that code and include it in an .txt file labeled "sources" in your code submission. "Significant" is purposefully vague, but pretty self explanatory. If you are unsure whether or not something is significant, put it down anyways.
You must publish your code via GitHub. If you REALLY do not want your code to be available publicly, contact an organizer at the hackathon and we can assist you. To learn more about how to use GitHub, watch our How to Submit video.
Not an enforced rule but rule of thumb for the rest of your life: do not put your API keys in your Github repo!
Remember: Being at HooHacks is a privilege. We do not tolerate discrimination of any kind. We can and will remove you if you are making the experience a negative one for any participating people and will take further action if necessary.

Prize Tracks

For each of the prize tracks, there will be a two prizes (one first place and one second place). You must apply to only one of these prize tracks.

To help you generate ideas for these tracks, we've listed out prompts as examples for each category but hackers do not have to stick with one of these prompts. We will also be having an idea generation period during the hackathon with experts from each field to help refine your ideas.

All prizes listed below are 1 per team member unless otherwise specified.

Accessibility and Empowerment by Leidos

Help improve the lives of the disabled, those in poverty, and members of marginalized or minority groups!

Prompts:

How can global climate change initiatives be more accessible and feasible for developing countries to implement?
How can video conferencing platforms be modified to be more accessible for people with auditory and visual impairments?
Food deserts are communities without access to food with nutritional value. How can we provide communities with the means to access nutrition?

1st Prize: Airpods (1 per team member)
2nd Prize: Google Nest (1 per team member)

Art and Gaming

Exactly that. One cannot define art. Speak to people. Change minds. The possibilities are endless – surprise us!

Prompts:

What creative outlets could be viable in a post-pandemic age of online connectivity?
How can we best bring attention to lesser known artistic communities?
Can we modernize past formats for games to bring a new spin?

1st Prize: Polaroids (1 per team member)
2nd Prize: Keychron Keyboard (1 per team member)

Finance by Capital One

Build a creative solution to a problem you see within finance!

Prompts:

Design and build an application to calculate a user's credit score.
Use machine learning to track a user’s spending habits by categorizing purchases, alerting the user for repeat purchases, etc.
Identify an area in which the experience of banking can be enhanced and build an application to improve it.

‍

1st Prize: $200 Amazon Gift Card
2nd Prize: $100 Amazon Gift Card
(1 per team member)

Education

Technology has changed but schools haven’t. Build something to modernize education and solve the problems education faces today.

Prompts:

How can we make online learning more fun and engaging for young students?
How can we encourage students to stay organized?
How can we create a positive and uplifting community of teachers?

1st Prize: JBL Speaker (1 per team member)
2nd Prize: Drone (1 per team member)

Health

Take steps to make your community more healthy, or help improve the health industry as a whole!

Prompts:

How can we get people to work out while they may be stuck at home?
How can we incentivize healthy eating and diet habits?
How can we help people focus on and improve their mental health?

‍

1st Prize: Fitbit (1 per team member)
2nd Prize: Massage Gun (1 per team member)

Sustainability by UVA Sustainable IT

Materially improve your local neighborhood’s environment, or educate your peers, before we all die!

Prompts:

What initially small changes could contribute to aiding global sustainability efforts when gradually implemented by communities at-large?
As the world adapts to newer technologies, how can we prevent efforts against sustainability?
With the existence of eco-friendly options that are both old and new, how can we bring awareness to these options?

1st Prize: $500 cash prize
2nd Prize: $250 cash prize

Data Science by CoStar

Model and predict complex patterns in the real world! Choose your own adventure...

And! For the first time ever, gather data from our hackers for your data science project! Come to the opening ceremony to learn more.

Prompts:

Design an application that allows users to upload pictures of trash and predicts when it is recyclable or compostable.
Make a browser extension that detects fake news.
Build an interactive map of Charlottesville overlaid with historic sites and their information.

1st Prize: Google Pixel Air Buds (1 per team member)
2nd Prize: Arduino Board Starter Kit (1 per team member)

Sponsor Prizes

Our awesome sponsors are giving out some pretty cool prizes! Teams can submit to any number of sponsor prizes, but are required to write how their project qualifies for each of the sponsor prizes in their submission.

Unless otherwise noted, these prizes are per team member.

* This prize is per team.

MLH - Best Domain Registered with Domain.com

Register a .tech domain name using Domain.com during the weekend. Each team may submit one entry per person on the team. Each winning team member will receive a Domain.com branded backpack.

Prize: Domain.com branded backpack (1 per team member)

MLH - Best Use of MongoDB Atlas

MongoDB Atlas takes the leading modern database and makes it accessible in the cloud! Get started with a $50 credit for students or sign up for the Atlas free forever tier (no credit card required). Along with a suite of services and functionalities, you'll have everything you need to manage all of your data! Build a hack using MongoDB Atlas for a chance to win a M5GO IoT Starter Kit

Prize: M5GO IoT Starter Kit (1 per team member)

MLH - Best Use of NLP Cohere

Cohere makes Natural Language Processing easy to do with their ready to use online platform. Simply sign-up for the developer free tier, no credit card required, and start training your very own language model directly on the web! Wondering what to build? Cohere is great for text and content generation, text-based search, predictive text and so much more.

Prize: Arduino Starter Kit (1 per team member)

MLH - Most Creative Use of Twilio

Twilio allows you to incorporate mobile messaging, phone calls and a ton of other awesome communication features right into your hackathon project using web service APIs. Are you building an e-commerce website and want to send text notifications or email confirmations once an order is completed? Or maybe your application needs to verify users based on their mobile numbers? Twilio makes all this possible and more. Build a hack that simplifies your life using any one of Twilio’s APIs for a chance to win a Twilio Swag Box and GameGo Console for you and each of your teammates!

Prize: Twilio Swag Box & GameGo Console (1 per team member)

MLH - Most Creative Use of Github

GitHub is one of the best ways to collaborate, push code, get feedback, and show the world what you’ve built during a hackathon. To take it a step further, GitHub is now offering you access to industry tools, events & learning resources through something called GitHub Global Campus. Win this weekend’s Most Creative Use of GitHub prize category, first by signing up for GitHub Global Campus and second by using a GitHub repository to host your hackathon project’s code! Make sure your use of GitHub stands out with a detailed ReadMe page, meaningful pull requests and collaboration history, and even a GitHub pages deployment!

Prize: GitHub Octocat Puzzle & Sticker bundle (1 per team member)

Fannie Mae - Cybersecurity Challenge

The Fannie Mae Information Security Red Team has set up a penetration testing challege for the UVA hackathon using OWASP Juice Shop, which is a hackable website created by OWASP that can be used during a Capture the Flag competiton as the challenge in question. For more information come visit the Fannie Mae workshop @ MEC 205 at 4pm

1st Prize: $125 Amazon Gift Cards & Lunch with Fannie Mae CISO/UVA Alumni Chris Porter
2nd Prize: $75 Amazon Gift Cards
(1 per team member)

Other Prizes

Here are some other ways you can win prizes at HooHacks!

Best Overall

All participants will be considered for this prize.

Prize: iPad for each team member in your team & tickets to Pinnacle 2023 https://pinnacle.us.org/#hero

Beginner Prizes

Getting started is the hardest step of all. That's why we reward teams of hackers where at least half of the members on the team are attending their first hackathon. All projects submitted by such a team are automatically eligible for this prize.

Prize: Echo Dot and Mini Projector (1 per team member)

Raffle Submissions

Submit entries into our data science collection software for a chance to win items at our raffle! Each entry into the projects is one entry into the raffle.

Want to submit a form to collect data for your hack? Come to opening ceremonies to learn more about how you can!

Prize: Various

Fun Activity Prizes

Compete in a fun activity against other hackers for all the glory (and sometimes food)! See our schedule for more info.

Prizes: Various