San Diego's student hackathon, hosted by CSE Society at UC San Diego.

Hackathon Website: https://hackathon.csesatucsd.com

November 14-15, 2026 | In person | Qualcomm Conference Room, Jacobs Hall, UCSD

Build something in about 26 hours, with a team of 1 to 4 people, from any school and any level. SanD Hacks is an open-AI, open-internet hackathon, so use whatever tools you want.

What you get
  • Free meals: lunch and dinner Saturday, breakfast and lunch Sunday
  • A 24-hour snack and drink table
  • Free stickers and swag
  • Workshops, including a Product Design workshop by Figma
  • Credits for everyone: ElevenLabs Creator tier, Neon promo credits, and $100 in Bright Data API credits per team
  • Mentors and a help desk staffed throughout the event
Tracks
  • Best Overall Hack: Fully open-ended. Awarded for exceptional technical execution, creativity, and impact.
  • UCSD Basement, Most Innovative Project: The most unique and impactful idea that addresses a real-world problem with a creative, realistically achievable solution.
  • Bright Data, Data for Good: Use web data to drive positive social impact.
  • ElevenLabs, Best Project Built with ElevenLabs: The best use of ElevenLabs voice and audio AI.
  • Neon, Best Database-Driven / Agent Backend: The strongest database-driven app or agent backend built on Neon.
  • Additional Major League Hacking Tracks: https://www.mlh.com/events/sand-hacks/prizes
Schedule Saturday, Nov 14
  • 9:00 AM Check-In (Jacobs Hall, outside Qualcomm Room)
  • 10:00 AM Opening Ceremony
  • 10:30 AM Hacking begins, Team Formation Mixer
  • 12:30 PM Lunch
  • 7:30 PM Dinner
  • 10:00 PM Hacking space closes
Sunday, Nov 15
  • 7:00 AM Hacking space re-opens
  • 7:30 AM Breakfast
  • 11:00 AM Initial submissions due
  • 12:00 PM Final submissions due, lunch
  • 12:30 PM - 2:30 PM Judging and presentations
  • 2:30 PM Closing Ceremony
  • 3:00 PM Event concludes
Sponsors

Bright Data, ElevenLabs, Neon, Figma, SpaceX AI, and The Basement at UC San Diego.

Website: https://hackathon.csesatucsd.com

Requirements

What to submit

Every submission must include:

  1. 3-minute video. Present your project: the idea, a demo (the most important part), and the technologies involved. Upload to YouTube or Google Drive and set visibility to Public.
  2. Short write-up. Problem, solution, challenges, tools used, and so on. You will answer specific prompts directly on Devpost.
  3. GitHub repository link.
  4. Live demo link (optional).
Deadlines (Sunday, November 15)
  • 11:00 AM, Initial submission. A placeholder is fine. We use it to record teams, assign table numbers, and set up judging. You can keep editing your project until 12:00 PM.
  • 12:00 PM (noon), Final submission. Video, write-up, and repo/demo links. No changes after this time.

We recommend leaving at least 2 hours at the end to record the video and write up your project. Do not rush this step.

Commit window

Your project cannot have any commits before Saturday 10:30 AM or after Sunday 12:00 PM. Violations result in immediate disqualification.

Judging

Judging is in person, Sunday 12:30 PM to 2:30 PM, in a science-fair format.

  • Each project gets a table number. The whole team must be at the table during judging. If a member is missing, the judge will give a zero and move on.
  • Judges walk around and may arrive at any time. You may have multiple judges, depending on your track selections.
  • Each judge visit is a 3-minute presentation followed by 2 minutes of questions.

Judging is holistic and covers:

  • Idea: Is it a real problem? How creative and practical is the solution?
  • Demo: Did it work? How well does it showcase the project?
  • Technical Complexity: Interesting technologies or new algorithms?
  • Completion: Is it complete? Does it do everything it advertises?

You will not be judged on code quality, such as comments or file structure.

Hackathon Sponsors

Prizes

2 non-cash prizes
Acer - 23.8” IPS Full HD AMD FreeSync Monitor
1 winner

Each of the 1-4 members of the winning team will receive a monitor!

Anker Soundcore Portable Bluetooth Speaker
1 winner

Each of the 1-4 members of the runner-up team will receive a speaker!

Devpost Achievements

Submitting to this hackathon could earn you:

Judges

TBD

TBD

Judging Criteria

  • Idea
    Is the problem being solved a real problem? How creative is the solution? How practical is it?
  • Demo
    Did the demo work? How well does it showcase the project?
  • Technical Complexity
    Did the project use any interesting technologies or new algorithms?
  • Completion
    Was the project complete? Does it do everything it's advertised to do?

Questions? Email the hackathon manager

Invite others to compete

Hackathon sponsors

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