Baltimore Hackathon Rules

  1. The primary objective of the event is to meet people while having fun building something new. Don't do anything that would detract from the fairness or fun of the event.
  2. The bulk of the construction should happen during the weekend. It's not going to be a fun event if some teams show up on Sunday evening with super-elaborate projects that they've been working on for months. All teams will be required to disclose whatever pre-built hardware or software components were used. You may be asked to do a code review before judging. For example: "We used the Ruby-on-Rails framework with jQuery library to make this website"; "We used the LLVM library that comes with Linux"; "We fabricated one laser-cut part before the weekend started because the machine was only available to us on Tuesday night". The judges can factor this into their decision and will give preference to projects that use limited pre-built components.
  3. Brainstorming, planning, and mock ups are fine to prepare in advance of the hackathon, these do not count as pre-built components. You are also allowed to consider what APIs and third party services you plan to use.
  4. You can use whatever tools and spaces are at your disposal. You're strongly encouraged to work at the hackathon event location because that's where the real excitstrongent and energy will be! In order to qualify for the prizes, you must be present to register and also meet with the judges to present your project on Sunday between noon and 5pm.
  5. Projects must be submitted to DevPost http://baltimore-hackathon.devpost.com/ by 1pm Sunday. Projects that aren’t submitted to DevPost by the deadline will not qualify to win.
  6. Projects are only eligible to submit their projects to win in one of the following categories:
    • ONLY the general category. (note: projects in these categories are not eligible to win either the hardware or wearable categories)
    • The hardware and/or the wearable category (note: projects in these categories are not eligible to win the general category)
  7. The wearable and general categories will have team and individual prizes. Thus, there will be two winners for these categories: An individual winner and a team winner.
  8. All projects are eligible to win the prize provided by the Mayor's Office of Informational Technology (MOIT). MOIT will choose one of any of the projects to receive their prize. (Note: The hardware track and the MOIT prize will only have 1 prize).
  9. You are strongly encouraged to share whatever resources you have available. Hackerspaces should use whatever reservation procedures they already have to ensure fair access to tools and whatever clean-up policies are already in place.
  10. Each participant may compete individually or as part of one team, but not both, and not on multiple teams/projects. Teams will be limited 5 to keep competition fair and healthy. Please list all team members that contributed to your project on your presentation in the “Team Members” slide, even if they did not officially sign up for the hackathon. It is not fair to receive extra outside help without disclosing that information so the judges can take that into consideration (don’t try to make it look like 2 people did the work of 4).
  11. Volunteers are eligible for prizes as long as they are not working with the judges. This includes defining judging rules, criteria, selection, and concierge services.
  12. Anyone in violation of the Code of Conduct (at the organizer's discretion) will be asked to leave and their project will be deemed ineligible to win a prize.