HACC Judging Criteria

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2024 Technical Review Rules

PROJECT SUBMISSION REVIEW START DATE: Monday, November 11, 2024 at 9:00 a.m.

Submission Requirements – all applications:

  • must be submitted through the Project Submission Form
  • custom coded solutions must have code commitments to Team’s GitHub Repository
  • must be deployed with a link and/or instruction on how to run the application (only provide credentials when requested to the tech judges assigned to your submission)
  • See Submission Rules below for all specific details

If using a project name that differs from your HACC registered team name, you MUST include your team name in your submission instructions to help evaluators find your project.

No code freeze shall be in effect. Technical review shall commence at the above date and time and it is recommended you have functioning code or application to be evaluated at this time. There will only be time for one review by technical judges, so please make sure your code is ready to be reviewed before completing the Project Submission Form. Have a functioning version in by the due date to avoid not being selected for the judging and presentation day due to incomplete or non-working application. Teams may continue improving their solutions and work towards improved demos/prototype for the judging day presentation.

Submission Rules:

  • If you are requesting the technical assessment team to review your project locally, you must provide clear and concise instructions and they must work. The technical assessment team will NOT set up databases, register for services, troubleshoot startup errors, or anything else that would take specialized knowledge of the workings of the application.
  • Functional Evaluation Videos are required to demonstrate the functional capabilities of the system but shall not replace code being committed to a repository for the technical aspects of this review. If your submission is a mobile application, you must request time to do a live demo with the technical assessment Videos should be provided to evaluators on the submission form and are limited to 10 minutes or 50 MB.
  • If you have a Salesforce, Google, Snowflake, ESRI or any other platform-based application, you MUST provide the technical assessment team with access to the application and a written summary of what modules or services were used. Additionally, include on the submission form a general timeline and scope of work completed if you don’t have custom code on GitHub to show.
  • If the project requires authentication, then access needs to be granted for the judges to login.
  • Judges may reach out to you to gain clarification on any questionable issues. Please be prepared to respond to Slack messages in a timely manner.

Each submission will be reviewed by two (2) technical judges. Your technical review score will be the percentage of all possible points, rounded to the nearest percentage point. For example, if Judge 1 gives your submission 25 points, Judge 2 gives your submission 23 points, then your technical review score is (25 + 23)/60 = 80%.

Security/Privacy Description – must be on provided on the Project Submission Form

The written description should explain how the app/application/solution should be secured. Be specific to your application’s security needs – describe how the different parts/functions of the solution should be secured for both data security and privacy. Do not provide generic security guidance. Limit the solution security plan to a maximum of 300 words.

Pitch Training

The Pitch Training Workshop will be held virtually on October 26th and your attendance is strongly encouraged.  Learning how to create and deliver a pitch will be extremely beneficial to your work and school activities.  Please have at least one member of your team attend this workshop, ideal attendee(s) are the team member(s) creating or giving your team’s presentation on Judging & Presentation Day. We will also be providing access to past trainings for you to view in the event you cannot make the live event.  The video will be posted on Slack. 

2024 Judging Criteria

Important Dates

  • October 12, 2024 – HACC Kickoff Event
  • October 15, 2024 by 5:00 p.m. – Teams & team membership finalized, Challenge selection must be submitted using the Individual and Team Registration forms.
  • November 11, 2024 at 9:00 a.m. – Project Submission Form provided via Google form completed – includes description of proposed solution, link/instructions for code, video – there will be no code freeze, however, teams must be aware that this is when technical evaluations will begin and should make sure to commit working code by this date to ensure the review committee can evaluate your team’s solution. Teams may continue to refine their solution until judging day.
  • November 13, 2024 – Team selection announced – teams who have met a minimum technical point threshold will be invited to present their proposed solutions on judging day and be asked to select a rehearsal appointment slot from the provided calendar invite link.
  • November 15, 2024 – Selected Team Rehearsal – We will be scheduling a tech check the day prior to Judging & Presentation Day for all teams selected to present.  We will check that your devices connect properly and your presentations appear as you wanted.  We will also explain presentation order and procedures.
  • November 16, 2024 at 9:30 a.m. – Presentations will be a maximum of four minutes in length including a demo with an additional two minutes allowed for questions from the panel.

Selection of Teams to Present

Final presentations will be made by teams on November 16, 2024 on the Judging and Presentation Day in person. The teams will be informed of their qualification for presentations as soon as the technical review of all teams is complete on Wednesday, November 13, 2024.

To qualify –

All teams must have working code submitted using the Project Submission form and GitHub. For platform-based solutions teams must provide a written summary of what modules or services were used and a general timeline and scope of work completed. Teams will be selected based on their meeting a minimum threshold result in the technical review (total tech review percentage needs to be 60% or higher). Teams will be selected based upon technical scoring in relationship to other teams’ results in the same award category. Total Participation will be limited to 25 teams:

  1. Top five high and middle school teams
  2. Top five college teams
  3. Top five professional teams
  4. Top team not selected in first 3 items for each challenge
  5. All potential remaining invites will be given based on highest scores received in the technical review for teams not selected in the above items.
  6. If not, enough teams meet the minimum threshold criteria to invite 25 total teams, the number of presentations will be reduced accordingly.

Please be aware, if a team is selected to present and for any reason no one from that team can attend to present their solution, that team will be removed from the Presentation Day team list and disqualified. 

The presentation format is a total of 6-minutes:  2-minutes presentation; 2-minute live demonstration of solution (a walk-through of your application) and 2-minutes Q&A.  If a category is not covered or addressed in your presentation, judges will be directed to provide a score of 0 for that category. The presentation timer will stop your presentation at 4-minutes and Q&A at 2-minutes cut off points if necessary.

Several judges from the community will review each presentation. Your presentation score will be the percentage of all possible points, rounded to the nearest percentage point. For example, if Judge 1 gives your presentation 16 points, Judge 2 gives your presentation 14 points, Judge 3 gives your presentation 18 points, and Judge 4 gives your presentation 18 points, then your presentation score is
(16 + 14 + 18 + 18)/80 = 83%.

Your total score is the average of your technical review score and your presentation score. In the above example, the average of the technical review score (80%) and presentation score (83%) is 81.5%, which is the final score for this submission.

Tie Breaker for Prize Positions:  If two or more submissions are tied, the Presentation Judges will vote on the tied submissions, with the Administrator casting the tie-breaking vote, if necessary.

The People’s Choice Award will be awarded a separate prize. The audience will vote for their favorite presentation. The winning team is determined by who has the highest votes.