VTHacks 14 // Hacker guide

Everything you
need to hack.

Find venues, meals, prizes, deadlines, and help for Sept. 18–20 at Virginia Tech.

Join Discord

Plan your overnight stay

We don’t provide overnight accommodations. Have a place to go after 10:00 PM.

This guide is live

A few room assignments and company details are still being confirmed. Watch Discord for changes.

What to pack

Bring what you need to build comfortably and move between event spaces throughout the weekend.

Laptop

Required

Student or photo ID

Required

Device chargers

Portable charger

Headphones or earbuds

Reusable water bottle

Sweater or extra layer

Notebook and pens

Toiletries and personal essentials

Backpack

Keep your ID with you during the event. Bring any medication or other personal items you may need during the day.

Know where to go

Planned venues. Exact entrances, room assignments, and arrival instructions will be added once confirmed.

Check-in & ceremonies

Burruss Hall

Planned for Friday arrival and opening, and Sunday closing.

Map it

Build, connect & late check-in

Goodwin Hall

Main venue for hacking, workshops, and Friday/Saturday activities. Late check-in will also be available here.

Map it

Present your project

New Classroom Building

Sunday judging will take place in NCB 160, 260, 320, and 360, with overflow rooms available if needed.

Map it

Friday overflow rooms

Surge Space Building

Rooms 103A, 104A, 104B, 104D, 108A, and 108B are available Friday from 7:00–10:00 PM ET.

Map it

Late check-in will be at Goodwin Hall. Check-in hours, parking, drop-off instructions, and accessible routes will be posted here.

Weekend overview

Use the live Schedule tab for current event times, rooms, trophy opportunities, and check-ins.

Friday · Sept. 18

Check in, find your team, attend opening, and start building at 8:00 PM.

Saturday · Sept. 19

Build, join workshops, meet sponsors, and collect trophies.

Sunday · Sept. 20

Submit by 8:00 AM, present to judges, and attend closing.

View live schedule

Food & vendors

Meals will be served at Goodwin Hall. Bring your badge and scan in whenever you attend an event or receive food.

Scan in every time

Events and meals

Hackers must scan in at every event they attend and whenever they receive food.

Your event team

Strikers · Midfielders · Defenders

You’ll be assigned an event team at check-in. Event check-ins earn points for your team throughout the weekend. The team with the most points gets first access to the next meal. Your event team is separate from the team building your project.

Friday dinner

Benny’s

8:00–9:00 PM

Saturday lunch

Cafe Mekong

12:00–1:30 PM

Saturday dinner

Roma’s Pizza

5:30–7:30 PM

Sunday lunch

Domino’s

12:00–1:00 PM

Have a dietary question? Ask in Discord. Confirm ingredients and available options with the event team before taking a meal.

Meet the companies

These companies appear in the current organizer plan. The final roster, sessions, and booth locations are awaiting confirmation.

Capital One Deloitte Databricks Impiricus Procedura AI Cloudforce Peraton GoDaddy Galois CoStar Group

Raffles & rewards

There are three different ways to earn rewards during VTHacks 14.

Five-trophy challenge

Guaranteed $30 digital gift card

Collect one of each trophy, submit a project, and have it judged on Sunday. Check in at a designated trophy event to receive that event’s trophy.

Standard raffle

Winners revealed at closing

Earn raffle tickets by checking in to eligible events. Winners will be announced during the closing ceremony.

13-inch MacBook Air
AirPods 4 with Active Noise Cancellation

Golden Ticket

Beats Studio Pro

Two randomly selected workshops will each have an exclusive Beats Studio Pro raffle. Only hackers who check in to that specific workshop will be eligible to win.

Complete the trophy set

World Cup

Champions League

Ballon d’Or

Golden Boot

Golden Glove

The live Schedule tab labels trophy events and events that award standard raffle tickets. You only need one of each trophy type; duplicates do not replace a missing trophy.

Tracks & prizes

Submit and present your project to compete for overall placement and special-category prizes.

Overall winners

1st Place

14-inch MacBook Pro

2nd Place

PlayStation 5 Digital Edition

3rd Place

Keyboard, mouse, and monitor setup

Special-category tracks

Best First-Time Hack

AirPods 4

Best Hack That Didn’t Work

Amazon Echo Spot

Best DEI Hack

LED Smart Fire TV

Best UI/UX Hack

Kodak instant-print camera

Best Ut Prosim Hack

The North Face Borealis backpack

Major League Hacking

MLH prize categories

Best Use of ElevenLabs

Build with AI voice and text-to-speech.

Prize: Wireless earbuds

ElevenLabs

Best Use of Gemini API

Build with Google’s multimodal AI models.

Prize: MLH swag kits

Gemini

Best Use of Solana

Build with Solana’s fast, low-fee blockchain.

Prize: Ledger Nano S Plus

Solana

Best Use of Tiger Data

Build with Postgres for real-time and time-series data.

Prize: Stream Deck Mini

Tiger Data

Best Use of Presage

Use camera-based vitals and emotion sensing.

Prize: Fitbit Inspire plus Presage perks: free developer-credit refills and 30% off your first year

Presage Presage SDK

Best Use of Vultr

Build with one-click cloud compute and GPUs.

Prize: Portable screens

Code: MAJORLEAGUEHACKING

Vultr

Best Use of MongoDB Atlas

Build with a managed NoSQL database in the cloud.

Prize: M5Stack IoT kit

MongoDB Free Atlas cluster

Best Domain Name from GoDaddy Registry

Claim a custom domain for your hack.

Prize: Digital gift card

Code: MLH0918VTH

GoDaddy Registry

Company-specific tracks

View opening ceremony slides

GoDaddy

Best Use of ANS

Build agents that discover, verify, and communicate with other agents and services across the open web using ANS.

1st: Ray-Ban Meta Gen 2 Wayfarer smart AI glasses
2nd: Beats Studio Pro over-ear headphones
3rd: Cocopar 15.6-inch portable monitor

Cloudforce

HokieAI Side Kick

Build a small standalone HokieAI experience related to your hack, post it, and show the live post during judging.

Most Viral: $1,000
Most Interesting: $500
Entry raffle: $500

Peraton

Best Mission-Critical AI Solution

Build an AI solution for a mission-critical challenge.

Beats Solo headphones

Procedura AI

Photo to Map-Ready 3D Building

Turn building photos and an address into a correctly placed, map-ready 3D model for Scorched Nebraska.

Internship opportunities for members of up to two teams

Capital One

Best Use of Nessie

Use Capital One’s Nessie API to reimagine banking.

$250 Giftogram gift card for each member of the winning team

Deloitte × Databricks

AI Agent for the Virginia Tech Student Experience

Build a data-driven AI agent for a campus career navigator, campus life intelligence hub, or Hokie smart campus.

Best overall solution: JBL speaker plus Deloitte and Databricks merch

Impiricus

Build the Next HCP Engagement Tool

Create a working tool or five-minute pitch for a new way to engage healthcare professionals.

1st: $3,000
2nd: $2,000
3rd: $1,000

Judging

Judging will follow a science-fair format on Sunday in the New Classroom Building.

Each presentation

Plan to present your project multiple times during judging. This timing applies to each presentation.

Minutes to present

Minute for questions

Judging rooms

NCB 160 · NCB 260 · NCB 320 · NCB 360

Projects will be judged within their assigned room. Additional rooms may be used for overflow if needed. Watch the Hacker App and Discord for your room assignment and any Sunday updates.

Judging assignments will be posted here at 8:00 AM ET on Sunday, September 20.

Find a place to focus

Plan your workspace and your breaks before the weekend starts.

Main hacking space

Goodwin Hall is the main workspace for hacking, workshops, and event activities.

Explore campus

You may explore Virginia Tech’s campus for available rooms and other places to work. Please respect posted access rules and leave campus workspaces by 10:00 PM.

Friday · 7:00–10:00 PM ET

Surge overflow rooms

Additional Friday workspace is available in Surge 103A, 104A, 104B, 104D, 108A, and 108B.

From idea to demo

Start small, leave time to submit, and practice showing your core feature.

Submit your project to Devpost by 8:00 AM on Sunday. Projects must be submitted by the deadline to qualify for prizes and judging.

Open VTHacks 14 on Devpost

Teams and participation

Teams may have up to four people.
Your team must be registered on Devpost and through the Hacker App.
VTHacks is fully in person; online participation is not available.
You can find teammates during check-in and at the beginning of the event.

Get ready to submit

Choose one core feature and agree on responsibilities with your teammates.
Prepare a short project description and check that judges can access your demo links.
Leave time to test your submission and practice your demo.

Need a hand?

You don’t have to figure everything out alone.

General questions

Use the ask-questions channel in the VTHacks Discord before or during the event.

Open Discord

Onsite & private support

Help desk locations, mentor requests, accessibility contacts, and private reporting details will be posted here. Keep sensitive personal information out of public channels.

VTHacks 14 · Guide in progress · Updated September 16, 2026