DEPLOY/24

Social Hive (Harney First Floor)
Friday, November 08
Sunday, November 10

Social Hive (Harney First Floor)
Friday, November 08 – Sunday, November 10

compsigh's second annual hackathon, and our biggest event of the semester. A not-to-miss, hype weekend for meeting cool people && building cool things.

Eligibility

DEPLOY/24 is geared towards CS and our friends from other creative areas of study like design, engineering, and E&I, but all USF students are welcome and encouraged to participate!

Anyone is welcome to come hang out and hack, but only USF students who register for the event will be eligible to win.

Participants can form teams of 1–4.

All team members must be on stage on presentation day to be eligible to win.

DeadlineCloses
RegistrationNovember 08, 08:00pm
Team FormationNovember 08, 11:59pm
Project SubmissionNovember 10, 11:30am

Submissions

Only one team member has to submit the project on behalf of the team.

Project submissions are not limited to a theme — build whatever you like! Common project formats:

  • Mobile app
  • Desktop app
  • Applet
  • Game
  • Web app
  • Website
  • Open source contribution
  • Hardware/robotics

Please do not start actively building your project (brainstorming is great though) until after the Opening Keynote on Friday.

For any submission, before you present your project, please ensure it is open-source or otherwise publicly accessible. You're welcome to keep it private until project submissions close.

Submissions don't have to be complete! What worked? What didn't? How would you continue to develop the project?

Presentations

  • Your team presents: 5 minutes
  • Judges ask questions: 2 minutes
  • Audience asks questions: 2 minutes

You're welcome to spend your presentation time in whichever way you see fit. We highly encourage creative presentation formats! Some ideas:

  • Audience interaction
  • Fictitious product launch trailer
  • Skit between users and problem solvers

In your presentation, please make sure your team members' roles in bringing the project to life are clearly articulated.

How to win

Teams can earn a People's Choice, 3rd, 2nd, or 1st Place victory.

An array (lol) of professors — primarily from computer science — will be joining us on Sunday to judge presentations.

Event organizers will not participate directly in judging — with the exception of any tiebreakers — but may adjust points as needed.

Here is the full rubric judges will be using:

CriterionPoints
Despite the time limit, the team showcased their effort in creating a polished solution, with attention to detail and user experience.4
The team presented their project in a creative and engaging way.4
The team defined the problem they sought to solve, identifying a clear and focused target user, need, and context.4
The team showcased their prototype solution, mentioning whether or not they accomplished their goal. If the project was incomplete, the team mentioned what worked, what didn't, and how the team would continue to develop the project.4
The team took on an ambitious challenge, through the scale & scope of the problem, their tech stack, or otherwise impressive medium.4

Points will be weighed based on the average grade level of your team.

For example:

  • All 4th-year team: 1.00x multiplier: 16.0 → 16.0 out of 20 points
  • All 3rd-year team: 1.10x multiplier: 16.0 → 17.6 out of 20 points
  • All 2nd-year team: 1.15x multiplier: 16.0 → 18.4 out of 20 points
  • All 1st-year team: 1.20x multiplier: 16.0 → 19.2 out of 20 points
  • One out of each: 1.1125x multiplier: 16.0 → 17.8 out of 20 points

Prizes

First place
  • Custom-made trophies for all team members
  • A year of Discord Nitro for all team members
  • A semester of ChatGPT Plus for all team members
  • Automatic approval for $500 microgrant from the Entrepreneurship & Innovation IDEA Initiative
Second place
  • A year of Discord Nitro for all team members
  • Automatic approval for $500 microgrant from the Entrepreneurship & Innovation IDEA Initiative
Third place
  • Automatic approval for $500 microgrant from the Entrepreneurship & Innovation IDEA Initiative

Agenda

Click to add DEPLOY/24 to your calendar!

Friday, November 08

06:00pmDoors open, check-in & late registration begins
06:30pmOpening keynote
07:00pmDinner & looking-for-group begins
08:00pmRegistration deadline
11:59pmTeam formation deadline

Saturday, November 09

11:00am – 04:00pmOffice hours: chill social, light lunch, and getting help/advice from organizers/other teams on React & Next.js, design, presentations, and other topics of interest

Sunday, November 10

11:30amProject submission deadline
12:00pmLunch & presentation day check-in begins
01:00pmPresentations begin
02:00pmIntermission
02:20pmPresentations continue
04:00pmClosing keynote; results announced

Breakout Spaces

These rooms will be available throughout the weekend for teams to work in:

  • LS 103
  • LS 209
  • LS 210
  • LS 303
  • LS 307

Resources

Whether it's your first-ever hackathon, or you're a seasoned hacker, we hope you'll enjoy the event! To get the most out of the experience, here are some pieces of advice compsigh members have contributed:

Challenge yourself: in 72 hours, I learned more about React & Next.js than I did in the 3 months prior. Don't be scared to pick a stack you're not familiar with. You'll learn more than you think.

Don't be afraid to mess up or not having something functioning as long as you took something out of it!

Go in with a plan to learn, and have fun. It's a good place to network, meet new people, and explore different opportunities as well.

Check out GitHub's design system for hackathons.

Document your process! Not just for the presentations, but for the camera roll too. :)