Steel City Hacks is returning for the 2022 Holiday season! This time, we've changed a few things up with a new format, tier system, and awards. Read all about that below!

Thanks to our generous sponsors, registrants may collect and sign up for several perks upon signup, as well as additional goodies upon submitting their project! More info is available on our Resources page.

Our Mission

Steel City Hacks is a recurring hackathon hosted by Steel City Codes, a chapter-based nonprofit organization dedicated to improving access to computer science education in historically underserved communities. Our hackathons are a great place to start for students interested in computer science, and we welcome all skill levels to this event. We hope that SCH can get you excited about coding, introduce you to new friends and peers in the computer science community, and motivate you to collaborate with others (or work on your own) to create a meaningful project you're truly proud of!

Our Event

Participants can register for Steel City Hacks in one of two separate competition pools: our hackathon event and our ideathon event! These events have distinct submission requirements and awards, and participants may only register for one or the other. However, participants are welcome to switch from the ideathon to hackathon at any time! We are also excited to present additional optional events (such as interactive workshops) this year for participants looking for extra educational opportunities.

Hackathon

Our hackathon is the first and most intensive way you can participate in Steel City Hacks! Our open-ended competition will give participants 1 week to create a project that meaningfully addresses our theme for this year. This year's theme is communication! Participants may use any programming language to creatively address our theme: there are no wrong answers, and your creativity is incorporated into our judging process. Our hackathon is open to participants of all skill levels, and our various awards ensure that everybody has a fair chance of winning a prize. Scroll down to check out those awards and see more details about what you'll be submitting and how projects will be judged, and navigate to our Rules page for further details about hackathon technicalities.

Ideathon

Our ideathon is the other major (and more beginner-friendly) way to participate in Steel City Hacks! Ideathon participants will submit a pitch to judges that presents a solution to a specific prompt. View our prompt below:

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed many things about how we communicate, creating new demand for software that provides better experiences for online socialization. Devise a pitch for an imaginary piece of software centered around letting users “meet new people,” whether within specific interest fields, locations, some other subcategory, or just generally.

As a general set of pointers, some aspects of communication software that you may wish to focus on in your pitch are:

- Security: how can users feel safe about their data and experiences using your software?

- Convenience: when and where can users use your software?

- Utility: how is this software useful to users?

- Creative self-expression: how do users communicate using your software?

Participants will have 1 week to come up with a solution and create a presentation that highlights the capabilities, feasibility, and potential drawbacks of their proposal. Our ideathon requires no coding whatsoever, and emphasizes creativity and problem-solving abilities. If you really like your idea, feel free to switch into the hackathon and start turning it into reality at any time! Scroll down to check out our ideathon awards, and visit our Rules page for more clarifications. Note that judging criteria for the ideathon are identical to those of the hackathon except for guidelines relating to complexity and polish.

Events/Workshops

We are excited to offer several optional events and workshops at SCH this year for participants who want to learn something new about various computer science topics. Participants can feel free to use the skills they learn at these events in their hackathon submissions!

Check out our event schedule, which contains a link to register for workshops: Event Schedule

Requirements

All Participants

All participants will be focused on creatively addressing a prompt or theme, and will need to present these ideas to our panel of professional judges. Participants will submit their presentations (presentations will not be held live) prior to their chosen event's deadline. All presentations must include a 3-minute (minimum) video demonstrating your ideas and project functionalities. Hackathon participants must present their running code and show off its capabilities). Videos should also include:

A full description of your project/proposal's capabilities
Potential real-world use cases for your project
Any difficulties you encountered in creating your project (or any further potential problems that might occur when implementing it in the real world)
Future places your project could be taken with additional work
Any inspirations for your project

These video presentations can be submitted in any format, but unlisted YouTube videos are preferable for our judges. Participants are also welcome to supplement their presentations with any documents that add further information to their projects. A template for this document is located in the Resources tab.

Hackathon Participants

Hackathon participants will need to create a functional prototype for their idea during the submission period. As discussed above, the functionality of this code should be demonstrated thoroughly in the video presentation. Hackathon participants will also need to submit their code to judges for review. This submission can be in the form of an archive file or (preferably) a link to a GitHub repository.

Code does not need to be replicable on judges' machines, but technical complexity and quality of the user experience will be assessed during the judging period. The more you show off your project in the video presentation, the more the judges have to work with!

Ideathon Participants

Ideathon participants are responsible only for the video presentation component of submissions, and should therefore focus on creating a compelling presentation that highlights the potential of their proposal. Your goal is to wow the judges with just your idea, so focus on selling it!

Hackathon Sponsors

Prizes

$10,875 in prizes

Hackathon: Best Overall

The winning team receives a $100 prepaid Visa gift card and $250 in DigitalOcean credits, as well as the choice between a pair of Sennheiser headphones or a drone! Each team member receives one Wolfram Award (1-year subscription to Wolfram|Alpha Pro and Wolfram|One) and a lifetime Taskade Unlimited license.
Team members will be reached out to for an internship with MRI software. See Resources for more details.
This award is given to the project that stood out to judges the most in the hackathon!

Hackathon: 2nd Place (Overall)

The winning team receives a $75 Amazon gift card and $250 in DigitalOcean credits. Each team member receives one Wolfram Award (1-year subscription to Wolfram|Alpha Pro and Wolfram|One) and a lifetime Taskade Unlimited license.
This award is given to an excellent project that stood out above the rest in the hackathon.

Hackathon: 3rd Place (Overall)

The winning team receives a $25 Amazon gift card and $250 in DigitalOcean credits. Each team member receives a lifetime Taskade Unlimited license.
This award is given to an excellent project that stood out above the rest in the hackathon.

Hackathon: Most Technical Complexity

The winning team receives a $50 Amazon gift card and $250 in DigitalOcean credits. Each team member receives one Wolfram Award (1-year subscription to Wolfram|Alpha Pro and Wolfram|One) and a lifetime Taskade Unlimited license.
This award is given to the project that showcased the most talent in programming.

Hackathon: Most Relevant

The winning team receives a $25 Amazon gift card and $100 in DigitalOcean credits. Each team member receives a lifetime Taskade Unlimited license.
This award is given to the hackathon project most relevant to current events and important problems that need solving across the world!

Hackathon: Compelling Beginner Project (2)

The winning team receives a $25 Amazon gift card and $100 in DigitalOcean credits. Each team member receives a lifetime Taskade Unlimited license.
This award is given to beginner-level projects that stood out as creative and well-designed!

Ideathon: Best Overall

The winning team receives a $50 Amazon gift card and $250 in DigitalOcean credits, as well as the choice between a pair of Sennheiser headphones or a drone! Each team member receives one Wolfram Award (1-year subscription to Wolfram|Alpha Pro and Wolfram|One) and a lifetime Taskade Unlimited License.
This award is given to the project that stood out the most to judges in the ideathon!

Ideathon: Most Creative

The winning team receives a $25 Amazon gift card and $100 in DigitalOcean credits. Each team member receives one Wolfram Award (1-year subscription to Wolfram|Alpha Pro and Wolfram|One) and a lifetime Taskade Unlimited license.
This award is given to an ideathon presentation with an exceptionally creative idea and pitch!

Ideathon: Best Presentation

The winning team receives a $25 Amazon gift card and $100 in DigitalOcean credits. Each team member receives a lifetime Taskade Unlimited license.
This award is given to the project that had the most engaging presentation in the ideathon.

Judges

Ritika Nevatia
Software Engineer, Apple

Ankush Gulati
Software Engineer, Netflix

Kizhedath Rohith Menon
Software Engineer, Meta

C.J. Jones
Training Developer, MRI Software

Catie Sirie
Director of Client Success, MRI Software

Judging Criteria

Creativity
Did you find a creative and compelling way to address the theme or prompt? Is your idea original?
Usefulness
Are there realistic real-world use cases for your project or idea? Do these use cases relate to the theme or prompt?
Presentation
Is your presentation interesting? Is it well-structured and easy to follow? Pretend that the judges are investors looking to sponsor your idea: are you selling your project well?
Complexity
Applies only to hackathon participants. Is your project technically complex? Does it showcase a variety of skills across various fields of computer science?
Polish
Applies only to hackathon participants. Does your project have a consistent and pleasing design theme? Is the user interface easy to use? Is your project buggy or slow? Projects do not necessarily need to be graphical to have a good user interface.