This year's challenges

Absolutely. Everyone can participate. Hackathons are technology development marathons that draw on the talents and initiative of bright minded developers, engineers, technologists, designers, and anyone with a passion and desire to have an immediate impact on the world. They are open to anyone who has a passion for making a difference and are focused on developing real solutions to global challenges.

Nothing to participants. We’re working with sponsors to make the event free of charge.

You can choose any challenge that captures your imagination and uses your skills. You can work on any of the offered projects.

Start by taking a good look through the challenges and select a few that interest you. You can join a team on the day of the event based on your interest in a particular challenge or a match of skills. We will also help you to find the right team. You are also welcome to form your team in advance and come to the event together.

Teams should be between 4 to 6.  We particularly encourage you to meet and collaborate with new people who have very different skills from yours. Bringing together very diverse skills and talents is often a key to breakthrough innovation!

All team members should register on the Space Apps site so we can be sure we have resources to support everyone who will be participating. Moreover, you will not be able to add your team members to your project page if they have not registered on spaceappschallenge.org.

We want to encourage your enthusiasm, so you are welcome to form teams before the event and to start figuring out how you will tackle the challenges. Of course, there is no need to do anything in advance, it’s entirely up to you. The two day event gives your team a chance to work together in person and we hope you will do most of the work over the weekend so that you can work collaboratively with others. The idea is not for you to just build the best app ever. It’s to create a team who will do something better than any of us can do on our own.  Also, please consider that you’ll be judged based on the amount of work you do on the day.

In spite of the name, it is not just about APPS! There are challenges that involve robotics, data visualization, hardware, design, games and many other elements! Just think of a creative solution!

Laptop, monitor, mouse, keyboard, clay, paint, electricals, drawing paper, your creativeness – whatever you need to make your awesome idea… if you don’t have an idea yet, make sure you bring your thinking cap. If you think you’ll need a sleep, bring a pillow long. Food, drinks and wifi will be provided.

All solutions built at the event must be submitted under an open source license that permits the free and open dissemination of the work. NASA and the other supporting organizations do not own the rights to nor are committed to utilize any solution developed during the event. See the legal statement for more details.

Registered participants will be able to submit their projects online for judging at spaceappschallenge.org during the event weekend from 28-29 April 2018.

Projects will be judged at the end of the event by local judges first and then 1 to 2 teams will be nominated for global judging.  The global level is done by a NASA panel winners will be in 5 categories: Best Use of Hardware, Best Use of Data, Most Inspiring, Galactic Impact, Best Mission Concept. A 6th award will be publicly determined in the People’s Choice category.