CSC Back-to-School Hackathon

about this event

About the Challenge: The CSC Back-to-School Hackathon is a beginner-friendly high school hackathon where students build technology to improve school life.

Your project can be an app, website, tool, AI project, design prototype, or physical gadget. It can help students, teachers, clubs, classrooms, dorms, teams, or schools solve a real problem. Projects can focus on studying, scheduling, communication, organization, wellness, accessibility, campus life, classroom tools, or any other school-related challenge.

AI tools are allowed and encouraged. You may use tools such as ChatGPT, Claude, or other coding and design assistants to brainstorm, code, debug, design, and build your project. Using AI will not lower your score. The goal is to help students explore ideas, build higher-quality projects, and see how computer science can create practical change.

However, teams must disclose how they used AI and must be able to explain their project, their decisions, and how their final product works.

Stay Connected: Follow CSC throughout the hackathon for updates, reminders, project highlights, and future opportunities.

Follow @webbcsc2028 on Instagram for major milestones, project highlights, winner spotlights, event recaps, and future CSC events.

Join the Webb CSC Community on Discord for Q&A, support, and updates throughout submissions, judging, and awards.

Participation in these communities is optional and does not affect eligibility or judging.

Our Sponsors: Our sponsors are helping make the CSC Back-to-School Hackathon more accessible by giving participants free access to tools and resources they can use to turn their ideas into working projects.

Featherless.ai: Participants receive one month of access to Featherless.ai's full model catalog, allowing them to build with hosted AI models without paying for inference. Eligibility: Participants must meet Featherless.ai's account and model-use requirements. Participants under the age of majority must have permission from a parent or legal guardian to use the service.

Momen: Every participant receives $100 in Momen credits to build full-stack applications using Momen's AI-powered no-code development platform. Eligibility: Available to hackathon participants subject to Momen's applicable account and platform terms.

Momen workshop: Momen will also host an optional online workshop for participants on building AI-powered applications with AI + no-code tools. Date: September 6, 2026 at 6:00 PM PDT. Zoom: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/85388074640?pwd=ut5qCWPC8KIVmtcKzFAMSbeMTHxOYa.1. Passcode: 017609

Render: Eligible participants receive $50 in Render credits to deploy and run their projects using Render's cloud platform. Eligibility: Participants must be 16 years of age or older to use Render. The sponsored participant credits are available from August 30 through October 1, 2026.

Gen.xyz: Participants can receive a free .xyz domain for one year to give their project a custom home on the web. Eligibility: Limited to the first 300 redemptions on a first-come, first-served basis.

Once the hackathon begins, newly registered participants will receive an email with the links, codes, and instructions needed to access the sponsored credits and resources.

Get Started: 1. Find a real school-life problem. 2. Think about who the problem affects and why it matters. 3. Build an app, website, AI tool, prototype, or gadget that helps solve it. 4. Use any tools, tutorials, APIs, templates, datasets, or AI assistants that help you learn and build. 5. Submit your project on Devpost with an explanation, demo or other evidence of your project, and AI-use disclosure.

You may work individually or in teams of up to 4 people. A 1–2 minute demo video is optional but encouraged.

schedule

tickets