TreeHacks 2021 will be the 7th-ever iteration of TreeHacks. Our theme this year is hacking for the future: addressing deeply impactful problems and building creative, unique solutions. We’ve identified five global and technological challenges that we think have tons of potential for innovation. Across each of these challenges, we’ve scaffolded resources like potential project ideas, data sets, APIs and toolkits, and more to help get you get started. There isn't a strict guideline for what you should work on, our focus areas for this year are: healthcare, education, civic engagement, sustainability, and social interconnectivity.
See www.treehacks.com for more information!
Eligibility
Teams (max 4 people) of university students who have been accepted to TreeHacks 2021!
Prizes
$124,360 in prizes
Moonshot Prize
The craziest, most out-of-this-world project.
iPad pros for each team member
Most Technically Complex
The most technically impressive project
Sonos One smart speaker for each team member
Most Creative
The project with the most innovative idea and execution.
Nintendo Switch for each team member
Best Hardware Hack
Best hack that incorporates hardware
Corsair K95 RGB Platinum XT mechanical keyboard for each team member
Most Impactful Hack
The project with the greatest potential social impact
Holy Stone HS720 drone for each team member
Best Beginner Hack
Best hack made by a majority-beginner team. Beginners are hackers for whom TreeHacks is their first hackathon.
Airpods for each team member
Healthcare Grand Prize
Best healthcare project
Apple watch for each team member + 2 Nvidia Jetson Nanos
Education Grand Prize
Best education project
Remarkable e-ink table for each team member + 2 Nvidia Jetson Nanos
Sustainability Grand Prize
Best sustainability project
Electric scooter for each team member + 2 Nvidia Jetson Nanos
Civic Engagement Prize
Best civic engagement project
GoPro Hero 9 for each team member + 2 Nvidia Jetson Nanos
Entertainment and Social Interconnectivity Grand Prize
Best entertainment/social interconnectivity project
Oculus Quest 2 for each team member + 2 Nvidia Jetson Nanos
[Microsoft] Azure Challenge
Best use of the Azure platform in a submitted project
- 12-month Xbox Game Pass Ultimate Subscription (each team member)
- 12-month LinkedIn Learning Subscription (each team member)
- $1000 team donation to selected charity (https://aka.ms/hackcharity)
[Esri] Best Use of ArcGIS Technology
Build content, APIs, and analytical tools using ArcGIS technology. It should be something that can be used every day, serves a strong, compelling case, and be very thorough and explanatory.
Criteria: most innovative and inspiring
Prize: $1000 USD
[OpenAI] Best Hack using the OpenAI API
(2)
Prizes will be provided to the top two teams that integrate the OpenAI API applied to one of the following challenge areas.
- Science (climate, energy, biotech, physics, etc)
- R&D (data analysis, data visualization, research tools, etc)
- Social Impact (healthcare, education, art, etc)
1st place prize is $120 in API credits (equivalent to 2M davinci tokens) and 2nd place prize is $60 in API credits (equivalent 1M davinci tokens)
[Cybertrust America and Mitsubishi Electric Innovation Center] Best Cybersecurity Hack: Cybersecurity Adopters Platform
Our robust public-private partnership is excited to see innovations that enable the nation’s adopters to enhance their cybersecurity posture with:
- Fast, good, and affordable solutions and services
- Robust knowledge-sharing, e.g., AI-enabled, web-based
Criteria:
- High appeal to adopters
- Potential to be applied in the real world
- Leverages NIST Cybersecurity Framework in the hack
$1,000 cash prize AND the opportunity to showcase to a team of CIOs/ CISOs /decision-makers in governments, a leading innovation center and nonprofit leaders, as well as a Black Hat World Champion.
[Checkbook] Checkbook Prizes
Participation: Use of Checkbook’s API
Winning: Most creative, cutting-edge utilization of Checkbook’s API
All participating teams will get a prize on successful completion of their hack
Winning Team: Apple Watch SE or Potensic T25 Drone with 2K Camera (Winners may pick)
Participating Teams: Google Home Mini or Amazon Echo Dot (Teams may pick)
[The @ Company] API challenge
Develop an app on the @protocol that Addresses One of the Five TreeHacks Themes
Healthcare, education, civic engagement, sustainability and social inter-connectivity are all areas of great importance in this time of crisis and political turmoil. Build a mobile app on the @protocol that adheres to one of the five TreeHacks themes for The @ Company’s API challenge.
Criteria: Use of the @protocol (most important), sophistication of the app and its features, adherence to one of the five hackathon themes, UI/UX
Prize: Apple AirPods Pro, $100 @sign gift cards, The @ Company swag
To get started, check out https://atsign.dev/gettingstarted.html
or join the discord at https://discord.gg/YvrDjGa6Fd
[Neo] Reinvent Social Networking.
(2)
There’s no better time than now for new ideas in social networking! Build a better social network. There are many opportunities: matching to meet new friends, improved groups, better event calendaring, verifying authenticity of people, moderating speech, and more. Reimagine how people connect and help change the world.
Criteria: Either start a new social network, or build a feature or concept that inspires how to improve existing social networks. We seek solutions that balance virality and engagement with connecting people meaningfully and authentically.
Prize: $10K cash, $5K cloud credits, & meeting with Adam Mosseri, Head of Instagram. Winning team members will also get access to workshops & mentor hours with thought leaders in social networking. Cloud credits will include AWS, Twilio, etc.
[Alchemy] Best Hack using Alchemy API and Developer Tools
Alchemy API - Ethereum Blockchain Developer Tools:
The best decentralized application developed on Ethereum using Alchemy’s API and developer tools will be awarded $300 in Eth!
[Landis] Hack most beneficial to aspiring homeowners
$300 Amazon Giftcard
[Stanford's Cantor Art Center] Art, Tech, and Activism Prize
(3)
Challenge: Help Stanford’s Cantor Arts Center (https://museum.stanford.edu/) make connections with and better support our surrounding communities. We are excited to see projects that:
Focus on DEAI (diversity, equity, access, and inclusion)
AND/OR
Help communities get involved with the Cantor’s current exhibition, When Home Won’t Let Your Stay: Migration through Contemporary Art (http://bit.ly/migration_show), which centers around themes of belonging and migration
Bonus points will be awarded to teams who attend our student events this weekend- RSVP here for the Zoom link: http://bit.ly/museum_nights_winter2021
Prize items:
• 1st Place: Each Person will Receive:
◦ The opportunity to be featured in upcoming exhibitions/museum programs and interact with museum professionals to implement your project
◦ Museum membership at the $100 level which allows the receiver to go to 70 other museums for free and more benefits outlined outlined here (http://bit.ly/museum_membership)
◦ Artist gift cards for https://justseeds.org/
• 2nd Place: Each Person will Receive:
◦ Museum membership at the $100 level which allows the receiver to go to 70 other museums for free and more benefits outlined outlined here (http://bit.ly/museum_membership)
◦ Artist gift cards for https://justseeds.org/
• 3rd Place: Each Person will Receive:
◦ Museum membership at the $100 level which allows the receiver to go to 70 other museums for free and more benefits outlined outlined here (http://bit.ly/museum_membership)
"Get involved with more museum student programs by filling out this form: https://bit.ly/student_museum_interest"
[Pinnacle] Best Hackathon Project
Each winning team member will receive tickets to Pinnacle, which invites the world’s top 50 collegiate hackathons for an epic finale event in fall 2021. More information can be found here: https://pinnacle.us.org (https://pinnacle.us.org/)
[Stanford McCoy Institute] Practice Safe CS: Ethical Frameworks for Technology’s Future
This prize awards the team that can best articulate the ethical tensions and potential hazards latent in their project and create innovative solutions for addressing them. Teams will also be evaluated based on the ethical significance of their technological intervention. Judging criteria for the prize can be found here: rb.gy/21wpus. Participants are encouraged to attend the workshop “Practice Safe CS: Ethical Frameworks for Technology’s Future” to learn more. To be considered, participants must also include in their devpost submission a written narrative that explains what ethical considerations were most important when developing the project and how they were incorporated into their final product.
$1000
[Hiro] Best Smart Contract Hack using Clarity
Build a Smart Contract Challenge that lets you experiment and get familiar with Clarity's developer environment.
Develop a functional Clarity smart contract that performs some action on the Stacks 2.0 blockchain. It should solve a problem, handle cryptocurrency, execute meaningful functionality, or fulfill an interesting use case. Upload your .clar file to Github, and bonus points for well-commented code and a descriptive README! More info here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1vEizhD_Utnb4bioDxBeQ4lIzAWkipCKUjPv8EQ-6oqI/edit
Prizing:
$1,000 for the first-place team
$500 for second-place team
$250 for third-place team
[VALUENEX] Text Data Visualization Challenge
Prize: UE Megaboom 3 Bluetooth Speakers for the winning team
Better understanding quantitative data has long been the focus of hackers. However, the world is abundant with qualitative data that has mostly been neglected for analysis - namely text data! We will be judging for the best text data visualization hack. Projects will be judged on your ability to make text data more insightful to users. Can you make datasets with text data easily understandable at a quick glance? Bonus points will be given to those who apply hierarchical levels of views, preferably through a zoom-in feature.
Attached, please find a couple example text datasets you could work on developing visualizations for:
https://www.kaggle.com/yufengdev/bbc-fulltext-and-category
https://www.kaggle.com/Cornell-University/arxiv
[Google Cloud] Best Use of Google Cloud
(2)
Use any Google Cloud product in your project (Firebase counts!)
1st place: Patagonia backpack for each team member
2nd place: Parkland backpack for each team member
Other top finalists eligible for swag bundles
[Lunchclub] Funniest hack
You want to make it funny, but technical and appropriate. Family friendly kind of hack.
iPad Pro 11'
[Seam] Coolest Hardware/Software Hack
Make some code do something with a bunch of hardware (sensors, devices, LEDs...etc)
Award: A Seam Gateway!! It let's you automate a bunch of devices with code.
[Seam] Best Security Hack or Security Game
Implement an interesting hack or capture the flag game that teaches users about security
Award: A Yubikey!
[Seam] Best Use Of ML
Whoever does the most interesting use of a bunch of nets
Award: a USB Coral Stick! (https://coral.ai/products/accelerator/)
[Citadel] Most Impressive Hack
Option of a gaming keyboard or Arcteryx apparel item for each member of the winning team
Devpost Achievements
Submitting to this hackathon could earn you:
Judges

TreeHacks Judges
Judging Criteria
-
Creativity
We want hackers to create a project that makes you say “wow” and tell all your friends about it. We're looking for projects that think so far outside the box that you begin to wonder why there was a box at all in the first place. -
Technical Complexity
In only 36 hours, hackers manage to build projects with remarkably complex infrastructures built on excitingly advanced frameworks. We hope to see projects that are really running some beautiful code or hardware under the hood. -
Social Impact
We're looking for hacks that seem crazy, the moonshots that seem out of this world, and the blueprints for change that will impact future generations in humanity's most pressing areas of concern in the coming years.
Questions? Email the hackathon manager
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