What is a hackathon?
A hackathon is an event where individuals or teams collaborate intensively over a short period to develop software projects or innovative solutions around a specific theme or challenge. This hackathon takes course over nine hours and students compete in teams to code and train the best AI model on a dataset that is given day-of.
Where is the event?
The event is hosted in Explora’s XStudio space.
How much programming/coding experience do I need?
None! We’ll provide a digital notebook to help you get started, and you’re guaranteed to at least have a working model by the end of the event. There will be plenty of mentors available to help you understand code, debug errors, and brainstorm model improvements.
Who is allowed to register?
If you are in high school and can attend in-person at Explora, you are encouraged to register! Registration is at: https://www.explora.us/events/thunderbird-hacks/
Can I register by myself, without a team?
Yes! If you don’t know anyone who has registered, don’t have a full team (3-4 people), or are just looking to make new friends, we’ll form teams randomly at the beginning of the event.
Do I need to bring a laptop?
You don’t need to bring a laptop, we have extras we can lend for the event, however we encourage you to bring your own so there are enough to go around. If you do bring a laptop, make sure that sites like kaggle.com and github.com are not blocked and that any parental controls allow for use of the laptop for the entire event.