UB Hacking is the University at Buffalo’s student-run 24-hour hackathon. Join us on November 7–8 to build a cool project and meet other ambitious builders
You can work on software, hardware, or a bit of both. Bring an idea you have always wanted to try, or find a team and come up with one here. First-time hackers are welcome.
At the end of the weekend, you will demo what you built and present it to our judges. There are prizes for hardware, design, AI/ML, and a bunch of other tracks, including projects that didn’t quite make it off the ground.
Find the schedule and apply at https://ubhacking.com.
NOTE: Joining this Devpost page does not confirm your admission to the event.
Requirements
You are required to submit one Devpost project per team before the deadline. Your submission should include the following:
• A description of what your project does and why you built it.
• Every teammate’s Devpost account.
• A link to your code repository, with access for judges.
• Screenshots, a demo link, or photos of your project.
• Any additional instructions or steps needed to run your project.
• The prize categories you want to compete for.
A demo video is mandatory. Keep it under 3 minutes. This demo video will give us more insight into your cool projects.
Be ready to demo your project during in-person judging. Don't worry, it doesn’t have to be finished but be clear about what works and what doesn’t.
Prizes
1st Place Overall
2nd Place Overall
3rd Place Overall
Radial Atoms
$1000 AND Lunch with the Radial ventures Team, bag of goodies
Spirit Of The Hackathon
LEGO Technic NASA Artemis rocket
Best Hardware Hack
Celestron PowerSeeker 127EQ telescope
Best UI/UX Hack
Glorious Model O wireless gaming mouse
Best Freshman Hack
ELEGOO UNO R4 WiFi Arduino starter kit
Most Over Engineered Hack
GAN 356 ME magnetic speed cube
Failure to Launch
Supersized Enter-key stress pillow
Best Use of ElevenLabs
Prize: Wireless earbuds
Description: Deploy natural, human-sounding audio with ElevenLabs. Create realistic, expressive voices for any project, from interactive AI companions to narrated stories and voice-enabled apps.
Eligibility: The project uses ElevenLabs voice or audio as a meaningful part of the experience.
Best Use of Gemini API
Prize: MLH swag kits
Description: Push the boundaries of what's possible with AI using Google Gemini. Use the Gemini API to build AI-powered apps, like a chatbot that gives personalized advice, a tool that summarizes complex research papers, or something that generates code, scripts or music.
Eligibility: Gemini has to do real work in the project, not just appear in the stack. Please add a Devpost question asking Gemini entrants for their Google AI Studio / Google Cloud project number.
Best Use of Vultr
Prize: Assorted prizes
Description: Bring high-performance projects to life with Vultr, from one-click deployment and scalable cloud compute to Vultr Cloud GPUs for AI-driven applications. Hackers can sign up and claim free cloud credits at https://mlh.link/vultr
Eligibility: The project (or a meaningful part of it) is actually deployed on Vultr compute or Cloud GPUs.
Best Use of Solana
Prize: Unruggable hardware wallets for each team member
Description: Use Solana's fast execution and near-zero transaction costs to build a game, social app, consumer product, trading or lending app, DEX, or a supply chain, identity or payments prototype.
Eligibility: The project interacts with the Solana network (devnet is fine).
Best Use of Tiger Data
Prize: Stream Deck Mini
Description: Tiger Data extends PostgreSQL for real-time data, time-series metrics and analytics: standard SQL, relational and time-series data in one database, continuous aggregates for live dashboards, and 90%+ compression on free-tier instances.
Eligibility: Tiger Data is the project's database. The most innovative, impactful and performance-driven use wins.
Best Domain Name from GoDaddy Registry
Prize: Digital gift card
Description: Register a domain name with GoDaddy Registry for a chance to win.
Eligibility: The team registers a domain through GoDaddy Registry (claim it at https://mlh.link/GoDaddyRegistry). Please add a Devpost question asking entrants for the domain they registered.
Judges
Alan Hunt
Professor
Andrew Collado
R&D Software Engineer at Stark Tech
Sai Harshavardhan Rudra
Vaishali
PhD Candidate
Pururva Lakkad
Aditi Vakeel
Data & Cloud Engineer
Christian Miller
IT Director in UB Computer Science and Engineering
Prajwal Shetty
Research Engineer, ACV Auctions
Zhi Kang Xie
Software Engineer | HelixIntel
Shynitha Muthyam
Data Engineer @CoreNatural Resources
Bhargav Hegde
AI Engineer
Sai Roshan Ayyalasomayajula
Assistant Professor/CSE UB
Namit Juneja
Judging Criteria
-
It Works
Is the project functional? Was there an attempt to have it production-ready? -
Usefulness
Is this project useful to its target audience? -
Technicality
How technically difficult was this project while still being able to achieve the goals they set? A bit more nuanced than the other categories. You could have the most complex hackathon project, but they weren’t able to do any of it. -
Effort
How much effort was put into the project; did you try? -
Freshness
How new/fresh of an idea is this? This more-so relates to how common their project is for hackathons, but be conscious of the types of projects seen online. -
Pitch
How well did they sell you on their project? Keep in mind, many of these students are pitching for the first time ever. -
X-Factor
The project doesn’t stack up well to our grading system, but should be in the conversation for prizes. It gets an all-or-nothing score. Most projects will NOT get the X-Factor.
Questions? Email the hackathon manager