Dates

The ucsb.network Hackathon will take place on Saturday, May 23rd, 2026.

The in-person event will run from 9:00 AM to 9:00 PM at the Loma Pelona Center.

Project submissions are due on Devpost by 9:00 PM on Saturday, May 23rd, 2026.

Judging will take place on Sunday, May 24th, 2026, and winners will be announced by 2:00 PM on Sunday, May 24th, 2026.

Eligibility

The hackathon is open to students of all skill levels.

Participants may register as individuals or as part of a team. Individuals may form teams before or during the event.

All participants must follow the hackathon Code of Conduct and any venue rules. Participants who violate event rules may be removed from the hackathon or disqualified at the discretion of the organizers.

No prior hackathon experience is required.

Project and Submission Requirements

Projects must be built during the hackathon period. Participants may come in with ideas, designs, or planning, but the main implementation should be completed during the event.

Projects should use AI in some meaningful way. This can include AI agents, language models, computer vision, recommendation systems, automation, creative AI tools, or other AI-powered features.

Each team must submit their project on Devpost by the submission deadline.

Submissions should include:

  • Project name

  • Short project description

  • Explanation of what the project does

  • Demo video or screen recording

  • GitHub repository, if applicable

  • Live demo link, if applicable

  • List of tools, APIs, models, or frameworks used

  • Team member names

  • Description of what was built during the hackathon

Projects must be original work created by the team. Participants may use open-source libraries, APIs, starter templates, and publicly available tools, as long as they clearly disclose what they used.

Teams may not submit projects that are offensive, harmful, discriminatory, sexually explicit, or otherwise violate the Code of Conduct.

Prizes

The grand prize is $1,000 in AI credits.

Additional prizes or sponsor-specific awards may be announced before or during the event.

Prize eligibility is subject to completion of a valid Devpost submission and compliance with all hackathon rules.

The organizers reserve the right to withhold prizes from any team that violates the rules, submits misleading work, or fails to provide a working demo or clear project explanation.

Judging Criteria and Winner Selection

Projects will be judged based on the following criteria:

  • Production Readiness
    We are looking for projects that go beyond vibe-coding and are production-ready with UI/UX, proper security, database architecture allowing for scale, logical infrastructure setup, etc. We encourage participants to use MindFort to pentest their products.
  • Business Feasibility
    Could this actually work as a startup? Was some thought put into understanding the market and the GTM strategy?
  • Idea Creativity
    Is this something that has already been done before? Is there innovation in the idea, a different application of existing technology, or an entirely new vertical being created?

Winners will be selected by the judging panel based on the above criteria. Judges’ decisions are final.