This weekend over 1,000 students from all over the world made their way to Philadelphia for 48 hours of hacking at PennApps. I’ve had the privilege of mentoring and hacking alongside them for about the last 32 hours and I’m insanely impressed with the high quality hackers and hacks I’ve seen. Since there’s only about 10 hours left in the competition, I wanted to take this chance to break down how the MLH points for this event will work.
First thing first, if you’re hacking and your team hasn’t submitted your hack make sure you do that now. (Seriously, right now. Go do it.) For submitting a hack, you’ll earn one point for your school. You can also win points along with the normal event prizes. There’s a much more detailed breakdown of how the scoring works on the blog if you’re interested.
PennApps gets 1,000 MLH Points to distribute based on merit to the hackers who participated in the hackathon. Geoff and I came up with the following distribution, which we think sets a great precedent for the remaining events in the season.
Top Three Hacks 600 Points
- 1st Place – 300 Points
- 2nd Place – 200 Points
- 3rd Place – 100 Points
Category Prizes 400 Points
- Best Hack With Originality, Bold Vision, And Synergy Between Two Sectors – 100 Points
- Best Hack People Will Use Every Day – 100 Points
- Best Hack That Makes Life So Easy – 50 Points
- Best Hack in Media/Entertainment – 50 Points
- Best Hack That Makes Student’s Lives Better – 50 Points
- Most Viral Hack – 50 Points
Keep your eyes open for an announcement with all the winners later this week and good luck if you’re hacking!
– Swift