Build, create, and design at PalyHacks

PalyHacks is an 24-hour hackathon for high school students hosted at Palo Alto School in Palo Alto, CA; run by students, made for students. In PalyHacks, we invite anyone with an interest in technology to come and build a project! Regardless of your skill level, you and your friends are invited to code, build, learn and have fun!

View full rules

Prizes

$19,359 in prizes

1st Place Overall

Amazon Echo Dots (2), Monster 121819 4-Outlet Surge Protector, 1 year of free personal subscription for any single JetBrains tool/IDE (4)

2nd Place Overall

Monster NTune High Perofrmance On Ear Headphones, Ultimate Ears Waterproof Backpack, UltraHD Black Platinum 4K High-Speed HDMI W/ Performance Indicators

3rd Prize Overall

Monster iSport Intensity In-Ear Earbud, MONSTER 123876 7 Feet Monster Icable for Car, Monster ScreenClean 2.0 +CleanTouch 2.0 Clean and Shield System, and Twilio Credits

Top 7 Teams (7)

A year of Wolfram|One Personal Edition plus a one-year subscription to Wolfram|Alpha Pro for each team member.

Best Designed Hack

Sketch licenses for each team member.

Best Mobile Hack

Monster® Power Bank, High Performance Charging Solutions, 7500mAh and Red Monster Sport-Tek Tee L

Best Beginner Hack

Raspberry Pi Starter Kit and Gray Monster Sport-Tek Tee M

Best Entertainment/Gaming Hack

Nokia Purity On-Ear Headphones (Magenta) and Orange Monster Sport-Tek Tee L

Eligibility

You must be enrolled in high school. If you are not in high school, contact info@palyhacks.io. 

Requirements

Attend and present at the hackathon, then submit your project to Devpost.

How to enter

Attend and present at the hackathon, then submit your project to Devpost.

Judges

Chris Tseng

Chris Tseng
CS Professor at San Jose State University

Henry Wong

Henry Wong
MD of Garage Capital III and Founder and MD of Diamond TechVentures

Charles Li

Charles Li
Manager and Engineer at CIeNet Technologies

Yinghua Yang

Yinghua Yang
Cofounder, Design Lead, and COO at FlipWord

Thomas Reese

Thomas Reese
Cofounder and CEO at FlipWord

Judging Criteria

  • Technical Difficulty
    Is the hack technically interesting or difficult? Is it just some lipstick on an API, or were there real technical challenges to surmount? This is the most important criterion that your hack will be judged upon for the general prizes.
  • Practicality
    Is the hack practical? Is it something people would actually use? Does it fulfill a real need people have?
  • Creativity
    Is the hack more than just another generic social/mobile/local app? Does it do something entirely novel, or at least take a fresh approach to an old problem?