Dates

Teams must register on Devpost by 3 PM on Saturday, January 17, 2026. After registering, you may continue editing your submission and adding materials until the final deadline.

Final submissions are due 1:00 PM on Sunday, January 18, 2026. Submissions are accepted only through Devpost.

Eligibility

NexHacks follows the NexHacks Rules, MLH Code of Conduct, and Carnegie Mellon University Student Handbook.

Directors, organizers, volunteers, mentors, sponsors, vendors, or anyone involved in running NexHacks cannot submit projects.

All projects must be built during NexHacks. Prior ideas are allowed, but pre-existing projects cannot be submitted. AI tools may be used to assist development, but fully AI-generated submissions are prohibited and may be disqualified.

Maximum team size is four (4). All team members must be listed on Devpost to receive prizes.

All submissions must be finalized by Sunday, January 18 at 1:00 PM. This is a hard deadline, and late submissions will not be reviewed.

Project and Submission Rules

Failure to follow these rules may result in disqualification:

• Teams may include up to four participants; smaller teams and solo hackers are allowed
• Only submit projects to NexHacks; cross-submissions to other hackathons are prohibited
• All code must be uploaded and linked on Devpost before the deadline
• Submissions with a demo but no accessible code will be disqualified
• Public frameworks, libraries, and AI tools are allowed; copied or uncredited code will result in disqualification
• Each participant may contribute to only one project
• Credit all external tools or libraries in your README
• There is no limit on the number of non-sponsor tracks you may submit to
• Work shown during judging must have been built between 1:00 PM Saturday and 1:00 PM Sunday
• No coding before 1:00 PM Saturday, but ideation is allowed
• Judging will be in-person expo style; at least one team member must be present to qualify for prizes
• You may submit to up to 2 sponsor tracks; MLH-labeled challenges do not count toward this limit

Prizes

To claim prizes, your team must demo your project during judging and attend the closing ceremony. If a team member cannot attend due to exceptional circumstances, NexHacks may arrange to send their prize.

Judging Criteria and Winner Selection

Judging will be conducted in an expo/science fair style. Projects may be reviewed by one or more judges depending on tracks submitted.

Projects will be evaluated on the following criteria:

Innovation & Originality
How creative and groundbreaking is the idea? Does it meaningfully leverage AI/AGI or reimagine existing solutions?

Technical Execution
How functional and technically impressive is the project? Are core features working and robust?

Impact & Scalability
Does the project address a real-world problem? Could it scale beyond the hackathon?

Design & User Experience
Is the project intuitive, visually clear, and user-friendly?

Presentation & Demo
How effectively did the team explain and showcase their project? Was the demo engaging and clear?

What We Don’t Judge On

• Code perfection or formatting
• Whether the idea is 100% original
• Pitch deck polish
• Prior experience or credentials
• Team size (unless >4)
• Hours of sleep

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