The University of Cambridge's official Hackathon
Not twice, but three times.
Not 2D, but 3D.
Not binary, but ternary.
From the 20th to the 21st of January 2018, Cambridge University’s annual hackathon will yet again bring together 300 hackers, programmers, designers and more from universities all over the world.
For 24 hours they will build, break and innovate to produce projects that push the boundaries of technology.
Prizes
$9,795 in prizes
Hack Cambridge 1st Place
The team judged to have produced the most innovative, technically challenging and well-designed project.
Prizes: A unique Hack Cambridge trophy as well as a mechanical keyboard for each team member.
Hack Cambrige 2nd Place
Runners up.
Prizes: A Rasberry Pi (developed here in Cambridge) for each team member.
Hack Cambridge 3rd Place
Runners up.
Prizes: A copy of the fantastic card game Exploding Kittens for each team member.
Hack Cambridge People's Prize
Do you have what it takes to impress your fellow hackers?
The prize is programming language playing cards for each team member.
Instagram and Twitter picture competition #ternary
Let us know what you have been doing during Hack Cambridge by tweeting or ‘instagramming’ a photo with the hashtag #ternary, and the prize will go to our favourite.
Prizes are Cryptex USB Flash Drives with mechanical locks.
Microsoft Vision Cognitive Challenge 1
We will be looking for innovative applications of this technology and the focus will be on the Vision API set of cognitive services.
Challenge; The Microsoft challenge will focus on the Cognitive Services API http://aka.ms/cognitive
The team solutions will need to a built using Microsoft Cognitive Services.
Cognitive Services are a free, easy-to-use, open-source SDK and services and even export models to run offline, starting with export to the CoreML format for iOS 11.
The use of the following APIs will be considered:
Computer Vision API Distill actionable information from images
Face API Detect, identify, analyse, organise and tag faces in photos
Content moderator Automated image, text and video moderation
Emotion API PREVIEW Personalise user experiences with emotion recognition
Custom Vision Service PREVIEW Easily customise your own state-of-the-art computer vision models for your unique use case
Video Indexer PREVIEW Unlock video insights
Prizes: Xbox One X
Microsoft Azure Challenge
We will be looking for innovative applications of the Microsoft Azure Cloud Platform
Prizes: $100 of Azure for 3 months so a total of $300, plus Microsoft Ruck Sack and Goodies
Arm Best Hack in Hardware
This prize is for the best hack using a piece of hardware that is not your laptop or mobile phone.
Prizes: Micro:bit inventor's kit & Amazon Gift Card
Best use of ARK blockchain
The best project using ARK blockchain technology and APIs for IoT(preferably) or in general
Prizes: 3x IoT box by ADAFruit for the best team + Branded Ledges Nano S HW Wallet for team members.
TPP's Health & Society Hack
We're looking for the hack which has the biggest potential to change the world, with a particular interest in healthcare.
Prizes: A drone for each team member.
Amazon API prize
The prize is given to the team that Amazon judge to have made the best use of their APIs.
Prizes: An Amazon Echo for each team member.
Droit Hack Challenge
Natural language processing of legal texts.
Prizes: Macbook Air
Best Simulation
Build the best simulation/video game with clever use of data and existing technologies.
Prizes: TBC
Accenture prize
The Accenture Team's favourite project.
Prizes: TBC
Cisco Challenge
Using the Cisco Spark development kit, build a Spark Bot to help you in your daily life.
Be it scheduling, voting, daily dog pic feed or anything else you can come up with.
Our current fave is KernelSandersBot who helps us with our team’s fried chicken orders, let’s see if you can compete with that.
Good luck and let the craziest idea win!
Prizes: £100 Amazon voucher
Avast Hack Challenge
Become a counter-intelligence agent in a Roman Legionary styled Avast Hack Challenge.
Find a foreign spy and recover a magical item to stop enemies from spying on you!
Apply your logical thinking and knowledge of PC, math, and knowledge of PC, math, cryptology and tone dialing. The first one to send us their result gets a DJI Spark drone as a prize.
So let’s play!
RULES:
Accept the challenge
Get your USB flash drive with the game at the Avast stand in Guildhall Place
When you solve the challenge, you’ll find out how to claim the prize
The first correct result wins a smart drone, the DJI Spark
Do you need help?
Visit the Avast stand in Guildhall Place. Michal, Petr, and Milos from Avast will help you.
Prizes: TBC
Best Domain Name from Domain.com
Raspberry Pi & PiHut Essential Kit
Best IoT Hack Using a Qualcomm Device
DragonBoard 410C & Power Source
Amazon Web Services - Best Use of AWS
$30 Amazon Gift Card
MLH Mini Event
Battle your fellow hackathon goers at the Capture the Flag and !Light challenges to see who will be victorious.
Prizes: Bluetooth speakers and a BlackRock backpack
Devpost Achievements
Submitting to this hackathon could earn you:
Eligibility
In order to be eligible for Hack Cambridge Ternary, you must be over 18 years old, and a student at any school or university. You are also eligible if you were still a student after the 28th of January 2017.
Teams can include up to 4 people.
Requirements
When submitting your project, please make sure that any work done prior to the event, or external libraries/codebases/APIs which are used in your project are declared clearly.
Submission requirements for sponsors' prizes will vary but there are no restrictions to be eligible for the overall Hack Cambridge Ternary prizes.
How to enter
Hack Cambridge is open to those who have already registered and been ticketed via hackcambridge.com (you should be able to go to hackcambridge.com/apply/dashboard and see "Thanks for confirming your place")
Judges

Lee Stott
Microsoft

Mircea Baja
Sophos

Nick Tikhonov
Improbable

Robert Mullins
University of Cambridge

Cecilia Mascolo
University of Cambridge
Judging Criteria
-
Innovation
At Hack Cambridge, we love to see things that we've never seen before. Whether it's a new use of an existing technology or maybe something entirely new, we want to see something that breaks boundaries. -
Technical Excellence
Good projects don't just materialize out of thin air. They require hard work and dedication and we want to see you really stretch the limits of what you are capable of. -
Polish
Getting a project completed in time for a hackathon deadline can be a real scramble. However, we want to see something that's slick and well polished. If it weren't for the context, you would think it would have taken weeks or even months to build!