WHAT IS THIS?

The MCIT hackathon creates opportunities for MCIT students to compete against each other and create a project to present to recruiters. We understand that switching industries or trying to get into tech without a traditional background is difficult. Recruiters often want to see projects on students’ resumes that demonstrate their skills and creativity. Hosting the hackathon after students complete their first semester allows them to apply the lessons they learned so far.

Alone or in teams of up to 5, students will build a program that will test their skills as programmers. If students do not have teams, we offer a matching system so that they can meet their classmates. Projects should challenge the teams and offer new lessons in planning, software development, and working in teams. We recommend learning a new language over winter break and testing your skills in this environment!

To our future competitors, we want for you to have fun with this! Make the most out of it and build something that you’ll be proud of. MCIT won’t teach you everything about coding; it gives you the framework to be a great coder, learn new languages, and solve the problems of tomorrow. We can’t wait to see what you’re going to make.

WHEN IS THIS?

Dates: January 14 – 17, 2022 (Friday – Monday)
Ideas can be generated before January 14, but no coding!

THEME/PROPOSAL

We do not enforce a specific theme because of the nature of the program and hackathon. We do require a proposal to be submitted by the end of the first night (January 14) of the hackathon, flexible of time zones. We will also suggest projects (that will be useful to the MCIT community) and provide ideas to help brainstorm.

JUDGING

Projects will be judged by alumni and there will also be a community vote. Teams will be evaluated for superlative prizes. Judging criteria do NOT include:

• How well-written your code is (Though cleanliness and commenting are ideal for good collaboration!)
• How good the idea is
• How well the project solves a problem (You can create something cool but totally useless!)

PAST EXAMPLE

EliCIT - Dana Yang, Jintong Wu, Philipp Gaissert (MCIT 2022)

• Creativity
  How unique or innovative is the execution of the project? Did the team think outside of the box in response to their challenges or to collaborating remotely?
• Complexity
  How technically interesting or difficult is the execution of the project? Did the team stretch themselves or learn something new?
• Presentation Skills
  How organized and engaging is the presentation? Did the team effectively communicate their approach, challenges, and use-cases?
• Beneficit to MCIT
  Did your team create something that improves the MCIT experience?