How the day works.

• Teams have 3 to 4 students.
• Everyone on a team must be an accepted participant in 5th Form through Upper 6th Form.
• Teams are made up of students from the same school, unless the organizers approve otherwise. For example, we may form mixed teams for students who apply without a team and say they are open to it.

• All project work starts when hacking begins at 9:45 AM and stops at 4:00 PM.
• Ideas, sketches and planning before the day are fine. Code written before the day is not.
• You can use open-source libraries, APIs, templates and AI coding tools, as long as you list them in your submission.
• You must be able to explain what you built and how it works. Judges will ask.

Submit your project by 4:00 PM. Your submission needs:

• Your project name
• A short description of what it does
• Your team members
• A link to your code or a demo
• The tools and AI you used

Each team gives a short demo to the judges. Judges score every project on these criteria, each weighted equally:

• Problem & Insight. Did you find something worth fixing, and do you get why it matters?
• Product & Solution. Does your idea actually answer the problem?
• Execution. Does it work? How much did you really build today?
• Originality. Is it fresh, or a new take on something familiar?
• Impact. Who would this help, and how much?
• Pitch & Demo. Can you show it and explain it clearly?

The judges’ decisions are final. A judge with a conflict of interest, such as a close personal or school tie to a team, steps aside from scoring that team.

Teams keep ownership of everything they build at Hack 876.

Everyone at Hack 876 follows the Code of Conduct. Breaking it can mean disqualification.