Our mini-Hackathon competition is sponsored by the Rural Maryland Council.
This virtual mini-event will follow our standard annual event process but you and your team will have 2 months to put together a great app.
Whether you’re an experienced programmer or have never coded anything in your life, there is something for everyone at this hackathon.
Building an app isn’t just about coding. For a viable app to be successful, you need a business plan, marketing strategy, and a pleasing user interface. Putting together a complete package is the start of something great.
How it all works:
- This event is 100% virtual. Workshops, team collaboration, and professional mentor interaction will be online via the Discord server platform.
- This will be a 2 month build sprint.
- Presentations will not be live: they will be recorded and submitted for judging. This is to allow teams extra time for distance collaboration.
- All projects and presentations will need to be submitted by 10:00pm on Monday, January 31, 2022. Teams that do not submit by this deadline will be disqualified.
- Once all entries have been submitted, judges will determine the winner to be announced no later than Monday, February 7, 2022.
- Winning teams will be announced on our website and notified by email.
Participating in the mini event
The only requirement is that you and your team will consist of high school and college aged students who will compete to see who can build the best application. Whether you are in high school, an accredited 2 or 4 year college, or Homeschooled, you are welcome to participate. Bring your team and get started. Each team should have no more then 5 members total.
The team lead member should register the team for participation HERE. The email provided in the registration will be the email we will use for communicating additional information about the event. The registration number will be needed when you submit your final project for consideration.
Team Collaboration
There is no restriction on your team to meet in person for collaboration during the competition, but gathering locations and social distancing guidelines should be followed and are the responsibility of the team. It is the responsibility of the team to schedule and coordinate the team process. During registration, you can select to have a dedicated Discord team channel assigned to your team for a collaboration location for you to work from. Our team of Discord monitors will be the only people that will have access to your private channel.
Individual Participation
Are you an individual? That’s OK, you can be a team of one. However, if you have an idea but need experience in a role that you don’t have? No problem. MAGIC’s discord platform has a communication channel when you register called Team_Marketplace. This open channel was created to help you find the perfect fit, whether it’s to find a team to work with or a team looking to add additional team members.
Examples:
- You and your friend are a team that wants to compete, but you don’t have a business or graphic design person to fill out the team. Post in the #team_marketplace with the roles you are lacking and connect with like minded people that can help you with those roles.
- You are an individual looking for a team to participate with. You would post in the #team_marketplace that you are interested in joining a team and list your role interests.
- You already have an app idea, but no team. Make connections with other people with no team, and create your own team to bring the idea to life.
Your registration confirmation will include our Discord collaboration server link.
Theme Ideas and Problem Statements
We will accept any project ideas you and your team may have, but if you are looking for an area in which to contribute, we have a theme from which you can consider.
- The “theme” of our problem statements for this Hackathon is Rural Engagement. We are looking for solutions to issues facing Small Main Street America communities. This is a broad theme and can encompass many different type of ideas. The following are specific problem statement Ideas you can choose from:
- Tourism and community engagement. Does your rural town or location have great history? Walking trails abound? Do you have top notch wineries or micro breweries? Tons of great restaurants? How could an app help promote and impart knowledge to a potential visitor to your community?
- Elder engagement. Creating a simple, easy to use app that seniors can use to get access to community services, products, ride sharing, etc. Help the seniors of the community maintain a healthy lifestyle and have access to help with the click of a button.
A team choosing to submit a Themed project will receive extra credit points during judging.
- The Basics of Graphic Design – UX Design Experience
- How to Market Your App – Marketing a successful app
- The Basics of Front End Coding – Web Development
- How to Pitch your Idea – Pitch your product
How and When to submit your project
- Register your team/project idea HERE
- Create a Pitch Deck Presentation using our HACKATHON Template
- Record you/your team pitching your presentation.
- Email your video\YouTube link, a copy of your pitch deck and the questionnaire HERE
- Submit your project no later than January 31, 2022 for consideration
Hackathon Resources
We have put together some resource to help you.
Educational Resources
General coding and design resource –w3school.com
Mobile app builders
- Buildfire (free 30 day version) – Buildfire.com
- Thunkable app builder (free trial) – Thunkable.com
Team Resources
Team Rubric: This is the form that the judges will use to score your final project. This will give your team an idea of what the judges are looking for, and what aspects of the process hold more weight.
Pitch Deck: This is the pitch deck format required for final project submission
Prize Structure
The prize structure is as follows:
- $100 electronic gift card from Amazon for each member of the Best Overall team.
We will have honorable mention in the following categories?
- Best Tech
- Best Design
- Best Idea
The winner in these categories will receive a Best of Ribbon and Certificates.
All Electronic gift cards are purchased in US funds from the .com site. The gift card is the final prize and cannot be cashed in or converted to another method of payment.
MAGIC will determine and announce the top 3 teams after the competition ends. MAGIC reserves the right to disqualify any team that is found not conforming with the Rules of the competition. Any ties for the top 3 slots will be determined by time stamps on the teams in question. Oldest time stamp(who scored the points first) will win.