About the challenge

HackFREE will follow the typical format of hackathons. Students in groups of up to four, are to come up with a project of any type and design a working solution using programming. Our hackathon is open to all levels of experience.

There will be assistants wearing coral shirts in order to help you through every part of a hackathon like making and using GitHub, turning in your project, etc.

Get started

1. Find up to three other people to work with and create a team name

2. Think of an ongoing issue that has long-reaching effects on a specific audience. This can be your age group, your community, or people you know.

3. Using the design thinking framework to design and build a solution to this problem.

Requirements

By 2 PM EST on January 13th create a submission (which you will later edit to add your hack) that includes:

Names of all team members
School
Team name
Table Number

Please leave the other sections blank with some sort of placeholder until you finish them

By 1 AM EST on January 14th, resubmit your submission (this can be edited) which includes your project/idea description in order to check in.

All FINAL projects must be re-submitted before 9:30 AM EST on January 14th. For submissions, we need:

A short written passage about your project, the inspirations for your project, how your project was built, its features, challenges you ran into, and future plans for your project (max of 100 words each). They can also be bullet points.
A Hack that adheres to the scoring rubric and a project uploaded to the Devpost
A prepared 2-3 minute presentation/pitch for the judges.

Hackathon Sponsors

Prizes

$4,600 in prizes

Hacks of Distinction

7 winners

Seven top teams. Each member will receive:

Wolfram|One Personal Edition plus a one-year subscription to Wolfram|Alpha Pro. The value of each individual award is $375.00.
An exclusive invitation to present their projects at the NJ Makers Fair at InfoAge Museum in Wall Township this March.
$100 Amazon Gift Card

Beginner Hack

1 winner

The Beginner Hack. Each member will receive:

Best Use of MongoDB Atlas

1 winner

M5GO IoT Starter Kit
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, and you can get a headstart with free resources from MongoDB University! Build a hack using MongoDB Atlas for a chance to win a M5GO IoT Starter Kit for you and each member of your team.

Best Use of Auth0

1 winner

Wireless Headphones & Battery Pack
Auth0 wants your applications to be secure! Why spend hours building features like social sign-in, Multi-Factor Authentication, and passwordless log-in when you can enable them through Auth0 straight out of the box? Auth0 is free to try, doesn’t require a credit card, and allows for up to 7,000 free active users and unlimited log-ins. Make your new account today and use any of the Auth0 APIs for a chance to win a pair of wireless headphones and a battery pack for you and each member of your team!

Best DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) Hack sponsored by Fidelity Investments

1 winner

Fidelity Branded Wireless Charger
At Fidelity, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion are viewed as major keys to the success of their business, which is why they are challenging you to come up with innovative ways to create forward-thinking financial tech that promotes equality for all people! We want you to use your hacking skills to find and build solutions that put financial opportunities and resources within reach for all communities, creating accessible, sustainable, and/or inclusive solutions. The team with the best hack will win a Fidelity branded wireless charger for each team member!

Best Use of Taipy

1 winner

Wireless Headphones
Taipy is a powerful yet easy to use open-source Python library for creating full stack web applications! If you’re a Python developer, this library enables you to build interactive and dynamic graphical user interfaces and support them with data-driven backends. All of these functionalities are just a pip install taipy away and can cut your development time in half! Use Taipy in your hackathon project for a chance to win a set of Wireless Headphones for you and each of your team members, as well as a chance to have your project featured on the Taipy website!

Best Use of TinyMCE

1 winner

3D Printing Pen
TinyMCE is a rich-text editor that allows you to create formatted content within a hacker-friendly interface. Adding a Rich Text Editor component has never been easier! Alongside functionality like bold, italics, underlines, hyperlinks, or titles (to name a few), the editor also allows users to enable HTML tags, MarkDown or CSS. TinyMCE even gives you the ability to edit your text elements directly with no code, similar to the way you would edit a word document.

TinyMCE also has dozens of plugins that allow developers to customize their user’s experience. From implementing accessibility checkers, autocorrect, and enhanced image editing to utilizing emoticons, adding responsive design with auto resize and even a ChatGPT AI Assistant, there’s a plugin for every use case imaginable!

Signup for TinyMCE for a free trial and get started today, no credit card required! To qualify for the Best Use of TinyMCE prize category, be sure to render the editor with a Tiny Cloud account and use at least 3 open source plugins and 2 premium plugins in your project, for a chance to win a 3D Printing Pen for you and each of your team members!

Judges

Ayyagari, Leena
Senior Technology Manager, Bank of America

Ayyagari, Sarma
Chief Information Security Officer & Director, Cybersecurity, AdvanSix

Blazak, Dennis
Director, Space Exploration Center (ISEC) Community Plans and Liaison, InfoAge Science & History Museum; Officer Naval Weapons Station Earle (ret.)

Brace, Jeff
Vintage Computer Federation (VCF) National Board Member Chairman & Vice President VCF East Festival Showrunner | VCF Mid-Atlantic Event Manager, InfoAge Science & History Museum

Collemi, Lisa
Managing Member and Founder, Collemi Consulting & Advisory Services, LLC

Guirgius, Mark
Director of Investment Bank Technology, UBS Investment Banking Company

Iacullo, Joe
Assistant Principal, Manalapan High School

Jude, Calvin
Junior Achievement, Student, Major Computer Science with Concentration in AI, Rutgers University

Levin, Erik
Mathematics, Computer Science and Engineering Research Teacher, Manalapan High School

Natanagara, Marc
Board Trustee and Education Specialist, InfoAge Science & History Museum; Assistant Superintendent, Toms River Regional Schools (ret.)

Samuel, Robert
MK 7 Arresting Engine Systems Engineer, NAVY

Sandeep, Kaur
Consulting Services to Pharma Companies in the Program Implementation Space; Program Manager, Supply Chain, Moderna

Scelso, Alicia
Principal, Freehold Township High School

Judging Criteria

Scoring Rubric
Problem clarity, relevance, uniqueness, and existing solutions: 5-25 points. Solution design, innovation, impact, and problem-solving effectiveness: 5-25 points. Product viability, usage, and application: 5-25 points. Functionality: 5-25 points."
Scoring: Problem Definition
5 points:The problem is not defined and/or relevant. 15 points:The problem is somewhat defined and/or relevant. 25 points:The problem is well defined and relevant. How interesting or difficult is the problem to resolve functionally and technically?
Scoring Rubric
Solution Design Innovation Awesomeness 5 points: not so much 15 points: good 25 points: impressive
Scoring Rubric: Viability
Is the application/product technically viable and marketplace viable? Would people use this product? Does the product have a realistic application in the future and/or in the present? 5 points: not so much 15 points: sort of 25 points: absolutely
Scoring Rubric: Does it work?
5 points: does not work 15 points: works somewhat 25 points: it works!