PennApps XVIII is scheduled for September 7 - 9th, 2018 at the Penn Engineering Campus in Philadelphia. The eighteenth iteration of the nation's first college hackathon is upping the hackathon to new extremes, with the world's top and most promising hackers coming together to tackle real world problems using the latest in hardware and software.

Teams will start working on their hacks (at 7:30 PM) after the Friday evening kickoff and continue working till Sunday morning (8:00 AM). All submissions MUST be made here on Devpost. Videos are optional.

Eligibility

Make your project, submit your hack to Devpost and attend the PennApps expo to show off what you built. You must demo at the expo and submit on Devpost in order to be eligible for prizes. Furthermore, you must submit on Devpost to be eligible for travel reimbursements.  

Hackathon Sponsors

Prizes

$103,210 in prizes

PennApps XVIII Grand Prize

Each winning team member will receive a Lutron Plug-In Dimmer Kit + GIPHY Engineering T-shirts + a 3D-printing pen + $100 in Airbnb credit + the choice between an iPad Pro or Surface + the choice between an Apple Watch or FitBit Charge 3 + Year-long subscription to choice of Amazon Prime, Hulu/Spotify, HBO, or Netflix + Tile Combo Pack + the chance to come to HackFinals at Facebook HQ + Medal from MLH.

PennApps XVIII Second Place Prize

Each winning team member will receive the choice between an Apple Watch or FitBit Charge 3 + $100 in Airbnb credit + Year-long subscription to choice of Amazon Prime, Hulu/Spotify, HBO, or Netflix + Tile Combo Pack + Medal from MLH.

PennApps XVIII Third Place Prize

Each winning team member will receive a Polaroid Zip + $100 in Airbnb credit + Tile Combo Pack + Year long subscription to choice of Amazon Prime, Hulu/Spotify/Showtime, HBO, or Netflix+Medal from MLH.

Hacker's Choice Award

Given to the hack that is the most popular among hackers.

Each winning team member will receive a Nintendo Switch.

Top 10 Hack (10)

Each team member of the top 10 teams will receive $250 in AWS credits.

Top 30 Hack (36)

Each team member of the top 30 teams will receive 30-day trial of Wolfram|One Personal Edition, as well as a one-year subscription to Wolfram|Alpha Pro for each team member

PennApps Route | Best Hack for Resilience (Wharton Risk Center) (2)

Sponsored by the Wharton Risk Management and Decision Processes Center.

First place team will win a Nintendo Switch.

Second place team will win a $100 Amazon gift card.

PennApps Route | Best Health Hack

Each member of the winning team will receive a FitBit Charge 3.

PennApps Route | Best Education Hack

Each member of the winning team will receive a pair of Sony Noise-Cancelling Headphones.

PennApps Route | Best VR/AR Hack

Each member of the winning team will receive a HTC Vive Headset and Controllers

Best Hardware Hack

Got hardware? Awarded to the best hack where the main focus is on hardware.

Best Blockchain Hack

Each member of the winning team will receive a Alienware Mechanical Keyboard

Best UI/UX Hack

Given to the hack displaying the best user interface and offering an optimal user experience. Winning team members will receive a one-year subscription to Sketch and a Bamboo Stylus

Best Entertainment Hack

Given to the hack that displays the best entertainment experience. This could be related to movies, music, video games, or any sort of multimedia.

Winning team members will receive a GoPro Hero Session.

Best Humor Hack

Hacks that give us the funnies.

Winning team members will receive an over chair massage and a George Foreman grill.

Best Data Visualization Hack (DRW)

Presented by DRW.

Each member of the winning team will receive a Beats Headphone.

Best Use of DocuSign API (2)

Presented by DocuSign.

First place team will win $2000 and be featured on DocuSign's Developer Center and social media platforms. Additionally, each team member will receive an interview for an internship/full-time job at Docusign, VIP Passes to DocuSign's annual Momentum in San Francisco ($699 value), and the opportunity to pitch their project to DocuSign's Senior VP of Engineering.

Second place team will win $1000 cash.

Lutron IoT Prize

Presented by Lutron.

Awarded to the hack which demonstrates a good integration between hardware and software. Presented by Lutron. Winners will receive Lutron Caséta Wireless Smart Lighting Plug-in Lamp Dimmer Kits (HomeKit-enabled).

Best Use of Chubb API

Presented by Chubb.
The 1st place team will receive a drone. 2nd place will receive Alexa Dots.

Best Use of BlackRock API

Presented by BlackRock.

Each member of the winning team will receive a drone.

Best Use of Android Things (Google) (3)

Presented by Google Android Things.

Teams will be judged on the following:
- Technical difficulty: Did they do something rather difficult, or just glue some APIs together?
- Creativity: Is this something novel? I've seen a lot of hackathon projects and there's certain project themes that are fairly common.
- Design: Does it look nice? Is the software easy to use? Is the hardware just a bunch of wires on a breadboard. Design also extends to how well the demo works.

Each winning team member will be delivered a device prize from Google.

Best Use of Actions on Google Platform

Presented by Actions on Google.

Teams will be judged on technical difficulty, creativity, and design. Each winning team member will be delivered a device prize from Google.

Best Use of Facebook's Mission

Presented by Facebook.

Facebook seeks to make the world more open and connected. Teams will be judged based on their abilities to reflect this in their hacks. Each team member will receive Facebook-branded prizes post-event.

Best Use of MongoDB Stitch (2)

Presented by MongoDB.

The prize will go to the hack with the most comprehensive and creative use of the MongoDB serverless platform. $500 in Amazon gift cards will be divided among the team members and send via email.

Best Healthcare Hack by CVS Health

Presented by CVS Health.

The prize goes to the hack with the most potential to improve our health or health care experience.

Each team member will receive a Fitbit Ionic watch and $100 CVS gift card.

Best Hack that helps the Community and/or Environment Prize (CBRE)

Presented by CBRE.

The prize will go to the hack that best supports a community or helps with the environment. Bonus points for hacks that involve real estate. Each team member of the winning team will get a $50 Amazon gift card

Best Use of Machine Learning/AI (Comcast NBCUniversal)

Presented by Comcast.

Prize will go to the hack who has the most creative and innovative use of Machine Learning/AI. Each team member will receive an Apple Watch

Best Campus Life Hack

Sponsored by Penn Labs.

Build something that improves student life on your campus. If you’re a Penn student, pennlabs.org/api is a great place to start! Each team member will be receiving their choice between an Amazon Echo Dot and Google Mini.

Best use of Algolia

Each winning team member will receive a Casio CA-506C-5A Calculator Watch.

Best Use of Google Cloud Platform

Each winning team member will receive a Google Home Mini.

Best Domain Name from Domain.com

Each winning team member will be given a Raspberry Pi & PiHut Essential Kit.

Best IoT Hack Using a Qualcomm Device

Each winning team member will be awarded a 410C Dragonboard.

Best use of HERE.com

Each winning team member will be given a Power bank.

Best use of Authorize.net

Each winning team member will receive a pair of LS20 Gaming Headsets.

Snap Kit Weekly Challenge

Devpost Achievements

Submitting to this hackathon could earn you:

Judges

David Monnerat

David Monnerat
Top Ten Judge

Karan Zaveri

Karan Zaveri
Top Ten Judge

Anant Jain

Anant Jain
Top Ten Judge

Judging Criteria

  • Technical Difficulty
    Is the hack technically interesting or difficult? Is it just some lipstick on an API, or were there real technical challenges to surmount? This is the most important criterion that your hack will be judged upon for the general prizes.
  • Originality
    Is the hack more than just another generic social/mobile/local app? Does it do something entirely novel, or at least take a fresh approach to an old problem?
  • Polish
    Is the hack usable in its current state? Is the user experience smooth? Does everything appear to work? Is it well designed?
  • Usefulness
    Is the hack practical? Is it something people would actually use? Does it fulfill a real need people have?

Questions? Email the hackathon manager

Tell your friends

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.