All design elements, code, hardware builds, etc. for your project must be created during the event. Third party tools and frameworks are allowed as well as your normal tooling (Gulp, Yeoman, Composer, NPM, Bower, etc.). While you may not begin coding in advance, you can plan and discuss with your team in advance. Written documents and design sketches are allowed.  You may also incorporate pre-existing material that is freely available to the public into your project, such as public domain images, Creative Commons music, open-source libraries, existing APIs and platforms, and the like.

Projects must involve writing significant software, though hardware may be incorporated.  Note: projects that incorporate peripheral hardware that may need additional space (such as large robotic devices, drones, etc.) must be pre-approved by the Sunshine State Hackathon Planning Committee.

Teams must be comprised of 1-4 people.

Only ten of the competing teams will present their projects in the final round of judging at the end of the event.  The presenting teams will be determined by an initial round of judging that will take place during the final 1.5 hours of the event.  Note: we recommend that, prior to the beginning of preliminary judging, teams prepare a short (~2 minute) project pitch to be given to a subset of the judges.

Teams that make it to the final round will be given up to three minutes to present their finished project to a panel of judges.

The prizes not specified otherwise will be awarded solely based on the decision of the judging panel.  Some prizes (for example, the “Participant’s Choice” award) may be determined by peer or other forms of review.

At least one team member must be physically present during sign-in, and one must be conscious and present to present the project to the judges during their assigned presentation time. A team of three or four may have one remote member who never works from the hackathon location. The other members must spend the majority of their design/coding time at the hackathon location.

Any intellectual property developed during the hackathon will belong to the team that developed it. We expect that each team will have an agreement between themselves regarding the IP, but this is not required.