Rules

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Teams and Categories

Teams are comprised of between one and four humans. If you register as an individual, but would like to be recruited onto a team, be sure to attend any pre-contest meetings to increase your chances of finding others with whom you can work. Teams must work together as a group during the contest. If a team member cannot be in attendance, contact the contest organizers to determine if you have a valid exception. In general we require at least one person per team to be onsite at the event.

The Division your team competes in is dependent on the individual with the highest level of experience. For example, if your team of four people is a Novice, two Collegiate, and one Industry (professional), then your team competes in the Industry Division. You can read more about the divisions on the About page. Available divisions are:

Additionally teams compete in one of the following categories: You can read more about them on the About page.

  • App
  • Game
  • Maker

We will meet with each team prior to the start of the competition to help determine which track is most applicable for your team.

24 Hours

Each team has exactly 24 hours to develop their application during the Code Camp. Throughout the 24-hour period, mentors and organizers will be available to help teams in any way they can. It is permissible for teams to discuss and plan their app, but teams are not allowed to pre-build or design any portion of their app prior to the start of the event.

In past years, some teams have worked off-site for one reason or another. The organizers and sponsors have asked that teams participate at the venue for the duration of the event. Obviously, folks can come and go as needed to take care of personal needs, eat, work etc., but the work of building the project needs to take place at the venue.

Kickoff Meetings

There will be a pre-flight kick-off meeting to give participants a chance to ask questions, discuss app ideas, form teams and gain insights. Several industry experts from the local community will share pro tips and tricks for optimum performance during the 24-hour contest. Your team will be in a stronger position going into the camp for having attended these meetings.

Open Source & 3rd Party

Libraries, plugins, artwork and other assets that are public and freely available are allowed to be included in apps. Please list all libraries that you use on your team’s profile page to give credit where it’s due. Stock photos and free icon sets are allowed. Paying for something that is not generally available to everyone is not allowed, and not nice.

Developing a library in secret before the competition that provides the same general functionality of your project will likely get you disqualified. On the other hand, developing a library that is publicly available and provides a general-purpose, publicly usable function can be done before the competition begins.

The general rule is, you may use anything that is readily available to anyone else. The same goes for APIs. It is ok to utilize a paid account to use an API (think OpenAI) for your project. We don’t strictly enforce the Open Source rule, but do encourage it.

Web Services

We encourage use of third-party web services and their APIs (e.g. Twitter, Flickr, Google maps, Facebook, OpenID, OpenAI, etc). Almost everyone loves mashups. Again, make sure to update your team profile with what services you use.

What do you need for the event?

We only provide power, wifi, food, & drinks at the event. You will need any other equipment needed to work on your project (computer, monitors, additional power, 3d printers, etc). We will have a limited number of wired ethernet connections available so come early if you need one, or bring a LONG ethernet cable with you. We put a single (basic) power strip on each table to be shared by everyone at the table. Depending on your set up you may need to bring an additional one.

We do our best to accommodate food allergies/dietary restrictions if you let us know about them.

What can you work on before the event?

In general, the answer is “nothing”. Your project is meant to be completed in the 24 hour period. However, you may do any planning and story boarding. The rule is “You may not create any digital assets before the event”. You may do as much planning on paper, but you should not create artwork or any code before the event starts at 8:00:00 am.

Ownership and Open Source

The code you write is yours. If you intend to share it after the competition, you can pick whatever license you love. We encourage contestants to open source their code, but it’s totally up to you. If you want to start a business based on it, awesome.

Judging

Each team will be required to show their application and source code to the judges (duh!). Web applications must run in the web browser (either on a machine you provide or via a URL that the judges can access from their own computers). Mobile applications must run on an iOS, Android, Blackberry or Windows Phone device. The team must provide one or more devices to the judges. Take into consideration that you’ll need to feel comfortable handing your phone or tablet over to complete strangers for an extended period of time.

The overall contest winner will be determined by a panel of judges comprised of industry experts. They will evaluate each submitted application based on the following five criteria, each of which carries an equal 20% weight:

  • Technical Expertise
  • Completeness
  • Aesthetics
  • Commercial Viability (not applicable for Rookie Kit division)
  • Novelty/Innovation

After reviewing each application, the judges will deliberate to select winners from each track and honorable mention categories. The judges will publicly award prizes to the 1st, 2nd and 3rd place winners. The winners will be invited to give a demo of their app during the December Silicon Slopes meeting.

Under 18?

If you are under 18 years old, you are required to have this waiver by your parent or legal guardian. In addition, you will need to follow the additional rules outlined in the Under 18 Letter pdf. In a nutshell, you are required to have a responsible person over age 21 accompany you and/or your team. This responsible person does not have to be a parent, but must be willing to accept responsibility for anybody on your team under the age of 18, such as a coach, teacher or mentor.

Miscellany

Don’t break any laws. Don’t harm any animals (especially domesticated foxes). Also, you might want to read through the FAQ for some specific, more nuanced issues.