About the challenge

Royal Hackaway v8 is the eighth annual Royal Holloway Computing Society Hackathon, open to university students from the UK! Spend the 24 hours as a team working together to create the coolest project!

Get started

All information for this event can be found at royalhackaway.com

Requirements

What to submit?

1. Your project! Please give us a link to your public GitHub repository!

2. A writeup in the form of a concise README within your project repository. We want to know what your project is, what was your motivation for it, how does it work and how do we run it?

If you have any questions regarding project submission, please ask one of the volunteers or make a post in our discord #event-questions channel!

Hackathon Sponsors

Prizes

£1,050+ in prizes
+ other prizes
1st Place
£200 in cash
1 winner

£200 split across your team!

2nd Place
£150 in cash
1 winner

£150 split across your team!

3rd Place
£100 in cash
1 winner

£100 split across your team!

Pilksoft's Favourite Hack
£250 in cash
1 winner

A PicoSystem for each member of the winning team!

Verdn's Environmental Hack 1st Place
£200 in cash
1 winner

Verdn's Environmental Hack 2nd Place
£100 in cash
1 winner

Verdn's Environmental Hack 3rd Place
1 winner

Verdn Merch

The Task Master
£50 in cash
1 winner

Arduino kit!

Best Use of MongoDB Atlas
1 winner

MongoDB Atlas takes the leading modern database and makes it accessible in the cloud! Get started with a $50 credit for students or sign up for the Atlas free forever tier (no credit card required). Along with a suite of services and functionalities, you'll have everything you need to manage all of your data, and you can get a headstart with free resources from MongoDB University! Build a hack using MongoDB Atlas for a chance to win a M5GO IoT Starter Kit for you and each member of your team.

Best Use of Streamlit
1 winner

Want to take your Python skills to the next level? Streamlit is an open-source Python library that makes it easy to share and build custom web apps for machine learning, data science, and more. Instead of writing Python scripts without a UI, you can create a beautiful web app, complete with widgets and data visualizations, and deploy it for free to the Streamlit Community Cloud. You can even build a fully functional LLM-powered app with just 25 lines of code! Hack with Streamlit this weekend for your chance to win an Arduino Tiny ML Kit for you and each member of your team.

Best Domain Name from GoDaddy Registry
1 winner

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 some amazing prizes!

Best Use of Gen AI
1 winner

Generative AI is rapidly changing the landscape of software development. This category challenges you to build novel applications that leverage the power of Generative AI APIs. Think outside the box and integrate cutting-edge AI models to create innovative solutions with real-world impact.

To participate, utilize publicly available Generative AI APIs (like those from OpenAI, Anthropic, Hugging Face, Llama, IBM Watson, or Google Gemini) to develop a unique and functional application. This could include:
AI-powered creative tools: Design an app that allows users to generate unique marketing copy, translate languages in real-time, or create personalized learning experiences.
Intelligent assistants and automation: Build a chatbot that can provide insightful customer support, or a system that automates complex tasks using natural language processing.
Next-generation content creation platforms: Develop a platform that empowers users to generate high-quality images, write different kinds of creative text formats, or compose original music with AI assistance.
This is your chance to get hands on with cutting edge tech, put your skills on display, and of course, win some awesome prizes!

Hackiest Hack
1 winner

Build something held together by string and tape. If your project works, but you're not sure why or how, this is the prize for you - win a blahaj!

Devpost Achievements

Submitting to this hackathon could earn you:

Judges

Ole Watherston

Ole Watherston
Event Lead

Jim Marris

Jim Marris
Event Organiser

Adam Brown

Adam Brown
Event Organiser

JJ Littleton

JJ Littleton
Event Organiser

Judging Criteria

  • Technical Achievement
    How innovative and complex is the solution?
  • Creativity
    Have you seen it before, is it cool and did it require more than 2 minutes thought and effort?
  • In-house work
    Is the whole project just an interface for a library, or did you create most of the project yourself?
  • End Product
    How polished and complete is the final piece?

Questions? Email the hackathon manager

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