PennApps XII is scheduled for September 4th-6th, 2015 at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia. The twelfth iteration of the nation's first college hackathon is upping the hackathon to new extremes, with the world's top and most promising hackers coming together to tackle real world problems using the latest in hardware and software. Teams start working on their hacks (at 8 PM) after the Friday evening kickoff and continue working till Sunday morning (9:00 AM). All submissions MUST be made here on Devpost. Videos are optional.
Eligibility
If you applied to PennApps XII, recieved an offer to attend and went on to confirm that you will do so, you are eligible to attend PennApps. If you attended and hacked at PennApps, then you are eligible to make a submission.
Requirements
Make your project, submit your hack to Devpost and attend the PennApps expo to show off what you built. You must demo at the expo and submit on Devpost in order to be eligible for prizes.
Prizes
$63,650 in prizes
PennApps: Grand Prize – First Place
Oculus Rift + Apple Watch Sport + Android Wear + XBOX One/PS4
| Trip to Facebook HQ for the World Hackathon Finals (Sponsored by Facebook)
PennApps: Main Prize – Second Place
Oculus Rift + Apple Watch Sport/Android Wear/XBOX One/PS4 |
Fitbits for each team member (sponsored by Facebook)
PennApps: Main Prize – Third Place
Oculus Rift/Apple Watch Sport/Android Wear/XBOX One/PS4
PennApps: Best Health Hack
Hacks that have applications in wellness, medicine and healthcare.
Prize: Thalmic Myo Gesture Control Arm Band for each team member
PennApps: Best Use of Health Dataset or Health Device
Jawbone Activity Trackers for each team member
PennApps: Best Hardware Hack
Hacks that are primarily based on physical, electronic and other non-software building blocks
Prize: Full Hardware Toolkit, which includes: Light up hoodie, Microcontrollers, cables, and other assorted add ons | Full List, Adafruit Arduino + Bluetooth, Bluefruit LE SPI Friend, FTDI Module, Buspirate | Electric styles giftcard ($60 per member), Soldering Iron, Helping Hands, Wire stripper, solder, Solder sucker, fume extractor, assorted wire, breadboard, protoboard
PennApps Route | Best Education Technology Hack
Hacks that are either educational in nature, or have applications in an educational environment. Prize: iPad Minis for each team member
PennApps Route | Best VR/AR Hack
Hacks where the main focus is on Virtual/Augmented Reality.
Prize: iPad Minis for each team member
PennApps Route | Best Social/Local Impact & Government Hack
Hacks with a primary goal geared towards social impact, or focus on a local community. Prize: 8 tickets up for grabs to the October 1st Phillies Game in the Mayor’s box | courtesy City of Philadelphia; or iPad Mini for each team member.
PennApps Route | Best Sports & Entertainment Technology Hack
Hacks that have applications in sports, entertainment, and other large events.
Prize: iPad Minis for each team member | Philadelphia Flyers tickets for each team member
PennApps Route | Best Humor Hack
Hacks that give us the funnies. Prize: iPad Minis for each team member
PennApps Route | Best Design Hack
Hacks that are either tools for designing, or where the majority of the work is aesthetic or visual in nature.
Prize: iPad Minis for each team member
#BestMicrosoftHack Prize
Microsoft Surface Pro 3's for each team member
Best Use of iOS or OS X
Apple Watch (42mm, regular) with White Sport Band for each team member
Best Use of Linode Services
Samsung Galaxy S Tablet for each team member
Best Public Safety Prize (Sponsored by TASER International | Axon)
Axon branded Bose or Beats headphones for each team member
Best Use Of Plaid API
1 bitcoin for each team member
Best Use of EveryBlock API (Sponsored by Comcast)
Beats headphones for each team member
Best Cloud Based Mobile App (Sponsored by Goldman Sachs)
(2)
Bose speakers for each team member
Best Use of Capital One API (Nessie)
$250 Amazon gift cards for each team member
Hottest Health Hack (Sponsored by Epic)
$250 Visa gift card for each team member for best hack using our FHIR API (see open.epic.com)
Best use of Amazon Web Services
1 terabyte hard drives to each team member
Best Stock Price Data Hack (Sponsored by FINRA)
Best hack utilizing end-of-day stock price data (provided) for companies trading on the NYSE, AMEX and NASDAQ stock exchanges. A data set will be provided that contains all active securities tickers with daily EOD stock price data for the last 20 years | Prize: $1000 pre-paid AMEX and Mastercards for the winning team
Best Use of an IAPD SEC Dataset (Sponsored by FINRA)
The data set describes investment advisers, the companies they are registered with and a set of public disclosures against them. Prize awarded for intelligent analysis, visualizations, or other cool uses of the data | Prize: $1000 pre-paid AMEX and Mastercards for the winning team
Best Use of GDG (Data Generator REST Services) API (Sponsored by FINRA)
Data Generator is a library for systematically producing large volumes of data. Using GetDataGen REST you can start data generation, check status of generation and get generated data| Prize: $1000 pre-paid AMEX and Mastercards for the winning team
Best Use of MongoDB
$50 Amazon gift cards for each team member, team has a chance to win a trip to NYC to attend MongoDB World
"We Can See Where You Were Going With This One" Prize (Sponsored by Plaid)
100 tacos for the winning team
Best Social Innovation Hack: Building Something that Matters (Sponsored by Venture for America)
The winning team will receive $500, loads of VFA swag, and automatic application advancement for the VFA fellowship!
Best Domain Registered with Domain.com
Dell Bluetooth speakers for each team member
Best AlphaLab Gear Hardware Hack
Automatic entrance into the AlphaLab Hardware Accelerator, much swag, trophies
EA Pathfinders: Best of Show | Best Use of EA API
2 EA Games per team member, EA swag and merchandise (and trophies), opportunity to talk with the Office of the Chief Creative Officer about EA
EA Pathfinders: Players' Choice Award | Best Hack with EA API according to players/hackers
2 EA Games per team member, EA swag and merchandise (and trophies), opportunity to talk with the Office of the Chief Creative Officer about EA
Best Hack for Scaling Human Connection (Sponsored by AirBnB)
AirBnB travel coupon, AirBnB backpack, AirBnB water bottle
Best Use of Twilio API
4G Selkbag
Most Innovative Embedded Application (Sponsored by L3 Communications)
Raspberry Pi starter kit
Best Use of the Uber API
$250 cash prize
Best Internet of Things Hack (Sponsored by Lutron Electronics)
Caseta Smart Bridge Starter Kit
Best Use of IBM Bluemix
Parrot mini-drone for the winning team
Most Innovative Electric Imp Project
Electric Imp dev kit and a SparkFun multimeter for each team member
Devpost Achievements
Submitting to this hackathon could earn you:
How to enter
If you applied to PennApps XII, recieved an offer to attend and went on to confirm that you will do so, you are eligible to attend PennApps. If you attended and hacked at PennApps, then you are eligible to make a submission.
Judges

A Killer Judging Panel
Judging Criteria
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Technical Difficulty
Is the hack technically interesting or difficult? Is it just some lipstick on an API, or were there real technical challenges to surmount? This is the most important criterion that your hack will be judged upon for the general prizes. -
Originality
Is the hack more than just another generic social/mobile/local app? Does it do something entirely novel, or at least take a fresh approach to an old problem? -
Polish
Is the hack usable in its current state? Is the user experience smooth? Does everything appear to work? Is it well designed? -
Usefulness
Is the hack practical? Is it something people would actually use? Does it fulfill a real need people have?
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