HACC Judging Criteria

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2022 Technical Review Rules

APPLICATION SUBMISSION REVIEW START DATE: Monday, October 31, 2022 at 9:00 a.m.

Submission Requirements – all applications must be:

  • submitted through the Devpost Team Submission
  • custom coded solutions must code commitments to Team’s GitHub Repository
  • must be deployed with a link and/or instruction on how to run the application
  • 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. Because of the shortened time frame for this year’s event, there will only be time for one review by technical judges. Therefore, be sure to 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 you have a mobile application, you must request time to do a live demo with the technical assessment Videos should be provided to evaluators on Devpost.
  • 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 Devpost 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 Devpost
A written description must be submitted via a required field on your Team’s Devpost. The 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 on October 29th 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 occurring on October 29th.  The video will be posted on Slack. 

2022 Judging Criteria

Important Dates

  • September 19, 2022 – HACC HUI opens for enrollment and team formation
  • October 18, 2022 by 5:00 p.m. – Teams & team membership finalized and Challenge selected must be recorded on HACC HUI.
  • October 31, 2022 at 9:00m. – Devpost Team Submission – 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 2, 2022 – 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 4, 2022 – Selected Team presentations and Zoom rehearsal – During your team’s appointment, your team will connect on a Zoom call with the HACC Committee to confirm their presentations are ready and working.
  • November 5, 2022 at 9:30 a.m. – Presentations will be a maximum of three 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 5, 2022 on the Judging and Presentation Day via Zoom. The teams will be informed of their qualification for presentations as soon as the technical review of all teams is complete on Wednesday, November 2, 2022.

To qualify – All teams must have working code submitted in Devpost and GitHub. For platform-based solutions teams must provide a written summary of what modules or services were used and include on Devpost 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). Top four high and middle school teams will be selected based upon technical scoring in relationship to other high and middle school team results.

Total Participation will be limited to 25 teams:

  1. Top four high school and middle school teams;
  2. Top two teams for each of the State challenges (8-16 teams typically);
  3. The top team for all open challenges;
  4. Remaining invites will be given based on highest scores received in the technical review for teams not selected in the first 3 items. If not enough teams meet the minimum threshold criteria to invite 25 total teams, the number of presentations will be reduced accordingly.

The presentation format is a total of 5-minutes:  2-minutes presentation; 1-minute live demonstration of solution (a walk-through of your application) and 2-minutes Q&A. Teams will be provided with a sample template of the presentation to cover the 4 categories to be evaluated, along with other details judges need to evaluate your work. 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 3-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.