About the challenge

HackFRee follows a traditional hackathon format designed to support all experience levels. This year’s theme, Innovating for Life, Community, and Beyond, invites participants to create meaningful solutions that improve everyday life, strengthen communities, or push the boundaries of emerging technologies. 

Students will work in teams of up to four to identify a problem and build a creative, impactful, and functional solution using programming, hardware, or any other technology they choose. Projects may fall under any of our three challenge categories:

  • Hobby & Lifestyle: Tools that enhance passions, solve daily pain points, or make hobbies more accessible.
  • Social Good & Community: Solutions that address community needs, improve collaboration, connect people to resources, and improve society.
  • Emerging Technologies: Innovative applications of AI/ML, AR/VR, IoT, automation, etc.

Throughout the day, you’ll find HackFRee Leadership Team members and teachers in HackFRee shirts who can help with every step of the hackathon process. Whether you’re new to coding or building your project, support is always available, so don’t hesitate to ask for help!

 

How to Get Started

  1. Form your team: Find up to three other participants to work with and choose a team name. You can also work alone if you choose to. If you don’t already have a group, you can meet new teammates during the team-formation period at the start of the event.
  2. Identify a problem: Think about an issue that affects a specific group, such as your age group, your school, your community, a hobby group, or even a global challenge. Choose a problem with meaningful impact and clear long-term effects, and be sure it relates to our themes this year.
  3. Use the design thinking framework: Brainstorm, prototype, test, and refine as you build your project. Whatever you’re working on to build, such as a website, app, game, AI tool, or hardware prototype, follow the design thinking steps to create a thoughtful and user-focused solution.

Requirements

What to Build

Your project must address a problem aligned with this year’s theme and fall under one of the three challenge categories (Hobby & Lifestyle, Social Good & Community, Emerging Technologies). Projects may be software-based, hardware-based, or a combination of both.

Important Requirements:

  • If your project involves coding, you must provide the full source code.
  • NO use of AI-generated code or AI tools is allowed.
  • Your hack should follow the HackFRee scoring rubric and be fully uploaded to Devpost.
  • Prepare a clear, polished 2–3 minute presentation/pitch for the judges.

 

What to Submit

  1. Initial Submission (Due by 1:00 PM EST): Create your Devpost submission (you will edit it later). Include:
    • Names of all team members
    • School
    • Team name
    • Table number
    • All other sections should contain placeholders until your project is complete.
  2. Final Submission (Due by 9:00 PM EST): Your completed Devpost submission must include:
    • A short written project summary, including:
      • What your project is
      • Inspiration
      • How it was built
      • Key features
      • Challenges faced
      • Possible future improvements
    • Your full project, adhering to the scoring rubric
    • Source code (if coded — mandatory)
    • A functioning Devpost upload with any necessary links/files
    • A prepared 2–3 minute presentation for judging

Hackathon Sponsors

Prizes

2 non-cash prizes
Best Beginner Hack
1 winner

Awarded to a single beginner team.

Hack of Distinction
6 winners

Awarded to the top 6 projects.

Devpost Achievements

Submitting to this hackathon could earn you:

Judges

Leena Ayyagari

Leena Ayyagari
Senior Technology Manager, Bank of America

Madeline Baik

Madeline Baik
Student, Mathematics, Stevens Institute of Technology

Lisa Collemi

Lisa Collemi
Member & COO, Data Analytics & Data Mining, Collemi Consulting & Advisory Services LLC

Vishwanath Gorti

Vishwanath Gorti
Lead Engineer | Vice President, Deutsche Bank; IEEE

Stephanie Komnenos

Stephanie Komnenos
Business Owner, Balloonacy

Claudia MacRae

Claudia MacRae
Software Engineer, WIT; S&E Alumna

Yusuf Ozkan

Yusuf Ozkan
Ph.D. candidate in Electrical and Computer Engineering, NJIT

Jyoti Shah

Jyoti Shah
Director of Application Development, ADP

Evan Su

Evan Su
Student, Computer Science, Stevens Institute of Technology; MNHS Alumnus

Pooja Thaker

Pooja Thaker
Student, Computer Science, Virginia Tech, Research Assistant in Socha Lab (Biomech); S&E Alumna

Judging Criteria

  • Problem Definition
    Is the problem clearly defined and relevant? How important or interesting is the problem?
  • Solution + Innovation
    Is the solution creative or unique? Does the solution effectively address the problem?
  • Functionality
    Does the project work as intended? How much progress was made? How reliable is the project?
  • Process + Improvement
    How did the team troubleshoot and improve their project? Did they apply feedback and lessons learned during the hackathon? Did they learn from mistakes and make clear improvements?
  • Presentation + Interview Skills
    Was the presentation clear and engaging? Did all team members participate? Were all questions answered thoughtfully, or correctly?

Questions? Email the hackathon manager

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