This prize track considers design, complexity, and impact to determine the winner! The projects that have won this track have historically been projects that are not only technically and creatively difficult to create but also something with a unique vision to it: i.e. they solve problems that nobody else solves or creates a product that we didn’t think we needed :)! Each member of the best overall winning team will receive the latest 14” MacBook Pro!

If you enjoy things like embedded systems or enjoy tinkering with circuits, this track is for you! We’re looking for ambitious projects that push beyond the screen and create something that deals with the tangible. The project can range from physical games and robots to custom accelerators. Each member of the winning team will be awarded an Nvidia 5080!

New to hackathons? We’ve got the track for you! Compete against other first-timers to win a grand prize of your own. This prize also considers design, complexity, and impact. Each member of the Best Novice team will win a Ray-Band Meta Glasses!

We’re looking for projects that capture that same excitement and keep people coming back for more. If you think you can build something we won’t want to put down, this is the track for you! The members of the winning team will each be awarded a PlayStation 5!

A huge thank you to the Harkey institute for supporting us in our pitching track! Do you have the gift of persuasion, the power to captivate an audience, and the ability to present your project with the charisma it deserves? In “A Bard’s Tale”, we're looking for teams who can develop innovative solutions and convey their ideas convincingly and compellingly. The winner is determined entirely by you guys! So please be sure to come to pitching tomorrow to vote (or compete) for your favorite project. First place will get DJI speakers, second will get mechanical keyboards, and third will get JBL speakers!

At Meta and Facebook, we believe technology can bring people closer together and deepen real human connections. Build the AI-powered social product you wish existed, or one that helps strengthen connections you care about in new ways.

AI should play a meaningful role in the experience. It might synthesize a group discussion into plans everyone would enjoy, organize scattered family updates into a shared story, or identify common interests that could spark a new connection.

Projects will be judged on how meaningfully they strengthen human connection, how essential and well-integrated AI is, originality, and the strength of the working demo.

The top three teams, selected by Meta judges, will receive:
- Invitation to advance to the Round 2 Hackathon hosted at Meta's Menlo Park campus. Travel and accommodations provided. Advancement to Round 2 is subject to eligibility verification and compliance with Meta's Round 2 Official Rules.
- Meta swag bag

We encourage you to try out and explore Meta’s AI tools and APIs to power your hacks:
- Muse Spark: Meta’s text model for chat, reasoning, and agentic experiences
- Muse Image: Meta’s image-generation model.
- Muse Voice Transcribe: Meta’s real-time audio perception model
- Muse: Meta's first personal AI agent, powered by Muse Spark. You can explore writing connectors, exposing your project's data or actions as a tool Muse can call.
- Facebook Graph API: Access public and user-consented data through a developer app.

ARZOPA Portable Monitors ||

Build something useful or creative with SerpApi. You can use any API available on serpapi.com and combine it with other tools, services, or datasets. SerpApi offers 100+ APIs for real-time data across web search, travel (hotels, flights, maps, and places), e-commerce, finance, and research, plus an Extract API for retrieving web page content. Create an AI research assistant, a local discovery app, a shopping comparison tool, a travel planner, or something entirely different. The challenge is open to any idea where SerpApi plays a meaningful role in what your project does.

1st: AirPods Max Gen 2 ||
2nd: Apple Watch Series 12 ||
3rd: Echo Show 11 ||

Building an AI agent often involves repeating the same setup: connecting tools, configuring models, writing instructions, and adding monitoring. How can a platform make that setup reusable so people can focus on what their agent should accomplish? Design and prototype a platform that lets users quickly create AI agents for enterprise grade use.

This track challenges hackers to develop “The Best Use of Nessie”. Participants will harness their creativity and technical skills to design and innovate tools that will help with anything related to finance. Capital One challenges you to reimagine the banking experience by building an innovative application that leverages the Nessie API (api.nessieisreal.com). Featuring access to mock financial data including accounts, merchants, bills, and peer-to-peer transactions, Nessie is your sandbox for solving real-world financial problems. We want to see projects that creatively integrate Nessie’s endpoints to empower users and improve their financial lives. The prize will be $250 Giftogram gift cards per member of the winning team!

As part of the hackathon, help Toyota customers answer one question: “Given my situation today, what’s the smartest next move for me and my Toyota?”
Personalize: Use a simulated customer profile, vehicle, and loan or lease details to generate relevant insights.
Simplify: Explain realistic options, payments, costs, assumptions, and trade-offs in plain language.
Guide: Guide customers to a clear next step: self-service, a follow-up, or an eligible offer.
Value: Show how the idea could improve retention, grow relevant revenue, or reduce service effort.

Expectations:
- Build a Working Prototype
- Prove it with Synthetic Data
- Innovate Responsibly with AI
- Reimagine the Customer Experience
- Unlock Meaningful Business Value

Track winners will receive the following prizes: 1st Place: $500 Amazon Gift Card, 2nd Place: $350 Amazon Gift Card, and 3rd Place: $150 Amazon Gift Card

Mechanical Keyboard ||

This weekend, assemble your ultimate hackathon A-Team using Cursor and Grok Bot to streamline your development, accelerate your builds, and lock in your shot at the SpaceXSI raffle. Every member on the winning team walks away with a custom-branded Cursor mechanical keyboard.

Here’s how you qualify:

Use Cursor as your core AI coding agent and integrate Grok Bot automation into your workflow.
In your project description, describe how you use both Cursor and Grok Bot.
Submit your project and be sure to opt-in to the Make it Legendary with SpaceXSI raffle.

MLH Swag Kits ||

It’s time to push the boundaries of what’s possible with AI using Google Gemini. Check out the Gemini API to build AI-powered apps that make your friends say WHOA. So, what can Gemini do for your hackathon project?

Understand language like a human and build a chatbot that gives personalized advice
Analyze info like a supercomputer and create an app that summarizes complex research papers
Generate creative content like code, scripts, music, and more
Think of the possibilities… what will you build with the Google Gemini API this weekend?

Unruggable Hardware Wallets ||

The world of development is evolving fast and Solana is leading the charge with a network built to handle all of your infrastructure needs. Forget high fees and slow confirmations, it’s time to build applications that are fast, efficient, and scalable.

Harness Solana’s core advantages like blazing fast execution and near-zero transaction costs to make your hackathon ideas become real world projects. With Solana, the possibilities are endless.

Create a game, social app, or consumer product that relies on instant, high-frequency transactions.
Design a sophisticated trading, lending, or decentralized exchange (DEX).
Build a prototype for supply chain, identity, or payments that can handle massive, real-world volume.
Show us how you can innovate with Solana for a chance to win Unruggable Hardware Wallets for you and each member of your team!

Stream Deck Mini ||

Building high-performance apps under hackathon deadlines shouldn't mean spending half your weekend configuring complex databases or learning obscure query languages. Tiger Data extends PostgreSQL to give student developers an ultra-fast foundation for real-time data, time-series metrics, and complex analytics.

Why build with Tiger Data this weekend?

Standard SQL Power: Query massive datasets instantly using the SQL you already know, with no complex NoSQL aggregation pipelines required.

Unified Data Stack: Store relational user profiles and high-frequency metric streams side-by-side in a single database.

Instant Dashboards: Serve lag-free, real-time frontend charts using pre-computed Continuous Aggregates.

90%+ Data Compression: Store millions of events on free-tier cloud instances without running out of disk space.

Whether you’re building real-time IoT monitoring, AI-driven analytics dashboards, or financial prediction engines, show us how Tiger Data powers your project. The team that demonstrates the most innovative, impactful, and performance-driven use of Tiger Data will take home some great prizes!

M5Stack Official Tab5 ||

Vultr empowers hackers to bring their high-performance projects to life instantly; providing everything from the speed of one-click deployment and scalable cloud compute, to specialized Vultr Cloud GPUs that can power AI-driven applications. We want you to push the limits of what can be built when infrastructure is no longer the bottleneck!

Sign up for a Vultr account today and claim your free cloud credits! Take your next hack to the cloud with Vultr for a chance to win some awesome prizes for you and your team!

Arduino Student Kit ||

Play with industry-leading LLMs on a single account using the Snowflake APIs. Adding AI capabilities into your application can be as simple as a single CURL command to Snowflake’s REST API.

Build customized applications, RAG powered chat bots, or embed AI-powered features into your app in half the time with half the hassle. Get started for free with a special, student 120-day Snowflake trial and check out this repository for an example of the Snowflake REST API in action.

Desktop Microphone & a Free .Tech Domain Name for up to 10 years! ||

Make your Team’s Achievements timeless: Win a .Tech Domain Name for up to 10 years to Showcase and Expand Your Project, Plus Desktop Mics for Effortless Collaboration on Zoom, empowering you to build even more cool things together!