Welcome to the 12th iteration of WHACK, Wellesley College's annual hackathon! Students from colleges throughout the world will come together for 24 hours to turn their ideas into reality.
Whether you’re a seasoned developer or designer, or just starting out as a beginner, there’s something at WHACK for you. We’re absolutely beginner friendly!
You’ll enjoy a weekend of awesome tech, swag, workshops, and mini-events while learning from distinguished speakers, inspiring mentors, and peers. We consider WHACK a success if you make new connections and gain skills that will stay with you long after WHACK is over.
Requirements
What to Build
We are looking for projects and prototypes of tools that will help improve education. You should be able to demo your project for the judges and make sure they have a clear idea of what your project is for, how it works, and how it contributes to the theme Hack Academy: Transforming Education.
What to Submit
You should submit a link to your project or prototype, as well as a short write-up about your project. This can be a URL to a working website, a link to your team's GitHub repository, a link to a Figma prototype, or anything else where people will be able to either view or download your project. You may also submit a demo video of up to 3 minutes.
Prizes
Best Beginner Hack
Eligible for teams with 2+ beginner hackers
Most Readily Employable
Most Innovative Hack
Best Design Hack
Best Education Hack
Students' Favorite Hack
[MLH] Best DEI Hack sponsored by Fidelity
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!
[MLH] Best AI Application Built with Cloudflare
Arduino Kit // Cloudflare is one of the world’s largest networks enabling hackers like you to build, deploy, and deliver trusted applications, no matter where you are! With Cloudflare, you’ll have all the building blocks to create a full-stack application; from C3 (create Cloudflare command line) instance deployment to object storage. You can even run GenAI (LLMs, text to image, Voice to text etc..) in the cloud and leverage your AI functionality via API requests using Cloudlfare’s Workers AI! Enjoy Cloudflare’s generous free tier to get started at no cost! This weekend, we want you to build an AI Application utilizing Cloudflare’s numerous services for a chance to win Arduino Kits for you and your team!
[MLH] Most Creative Adobe Express Add-On
Wacom Wireless Drawing Tablet & JBL Go3 Speaker // Adobe Express is an AI-first, all-in-one content creation app that makes it fast, easy and fun to design and share videos, images, PDFs, flyers, TikToks, logos and more. Best of all, it’s free to get started.
Add-ons in Adobe Express are simply extensions and integrations that are built upon very powerful APIs. These APIs provide access to the user’s document, connections to third-party tools, and so much more. You can extend the functionality of Adobe Express using add-ons to unlock new capabilities and workflows. Check out these add-ons to see what other cool ideas developers have implemented!
For this hackathon, we want you to build a creative add-on for Adobe Express. Users are looking for add-ons that involve assets like stickers or icons, work with presentations and data visualization, and work in roles like marketing and e-commerce. Build an Adobe Express add-on this weekend for a chance to win a Wacom Wireless Drawing Tablet and JBL Go3 Speaker for you and each member of your team!
*You can also submit to this prize category if you have a prototype idea for an add-on or have a partially completed add-on. As long as you’ve built with Adobe Express, we want to see your hack!
Best Domain Name from GoDaddy Registry
Hack from Home Kit
GoDaddy Registry is giving you everything you need to be the best hacker no matter where you are. Register your domain name with GoDaddy Registry for a chance to win a Hack from Home Kit! Each Kit contains wireless earbuds, blue light glasses, selfie ring light and a pouch for easy transport.
Devpost Achievements
Submitting to this hackathon could earn you:
Judges
Scott Anderson
Professor, Wellesley College
Sara Melnick
Professor, Wellesley College
Shruti Dhumak
Senior Engineer, Google
Srinivas Gopalan
Security Engineering Manager, AWS
Judging Criteria
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Design
Outstanding, thoughtful design and user experience. Takes into account accessibility. -
Technicality
Functional front-end interactions and use of external API’s. Code works as expected, and the technology involved makes you go “WOW!” -
Theme
Project aligns with all aspects of the theme Hack Academy: Transforming Education. -
Presentation
Exceptional presentation with a high level of clarity and cohesion. The team effectively communicates the hack and idea. They walk through the ideation process and showcase significant new skills gained throughout the hackathon. -
Prize Categories
Consideration will be made to how well your project applies to each prize category: Best Beginner Hack, Best Impact Hack, Most Innovative Hack, Best Design Hack, and Best Education Hack.
Questions? Email the hackathon manager
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