With free catered food and gallons of energy drinks fueling wired, red-eyed coders, the organizers of MHacks, University of Michigan's second-annual hackathon, say they're confident that the 36-hour marathon will break the Guinness World Record for largest student hackathon.
To do that, they will have to beat PennApps, University of Pennsylvania's hackathon, which took place last weekend, and attracted 1,000 students in what was billed as "the biggest university hackathon in the world." MHacks organizers say they expect their event to eclipse their rivals, beating that number by several hundred.
"If space were not a constraint, we would have well over 2,000 hackers show up from around the world," said Thomas Erdmann, MHacks' director and a computer-engineering student at the University of Michigan.
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Having outgrown last year's lecture hall where 500 people attended, MHacks will be hosted in the luxury-box section of the university's football stadium, otherwise known as "The Big House."
Tickets for this year's event sold out in just 24 hours, with MHacks getting attention from major tech companies, and even the White House. Students from MIT, Caltech, Stanford and the University of California, Berkeley, have all signed up to attend. Harvard, Georgia Tech and dozens of other colleges with top engineering programs are also sending buses to Ann Arbor, Mich. for the weekend.
Sponsors of the event include Facebook, Apple, Google, Twitter, Groupon and venture firm Andreessen Horowitz. The companies are funding transportation for students, and sending engineering mentors to attend — all to get a chance to recruit top-tier talent, first-hand.
"Students at this MHacks are the ones you will read about in the near future," Erdmann said.
Indeed, it's becoming more common for companies to host or sponsor hackathons. Publishing giant Hearst recently hosted a fashion hackathon in New York, while Spotify regularly backs a South by Southwest music hackathon.
Last year, Microsoft set the erstwhile world record for largest coding marathon, with 2,567 participants. That number was later eclipsed by Ehack, which had more than 9,000 people as part of its two-day IT security marathon last August.
Hackathons typically include coders glued to their screens; MHacks will be the same, but with one difference: how students will stay fueled. They can tweet with specific hashtags to request food or help from university volunteers and mentors. What's more, napping spaces will be available if they can't keep their eyes open for the entire hackathon.
"The only guideline is to build something awesome," said Raj Vir, MHacks co-organizer and a computer-science student at the University of Michigan. Vir added that students are also discouraged from writing code before the event.
Teams of four will present to judges on Sept. 22, and finalists will be given two minutes to demo their creations. First place wins $10,000. An additional $20,000 will go to multiple runners-up. Last year's champ was Speakeasy, a real-time spoken-language app. Second place went to ChaosPad, an iPhone app that enables touch-activated musical effects.
"Once you understand the hackathon mindset, you have an incredible problem-solving tool at your disposal," Erdmann said. "One that no university class can effectively teach."
MHacks is still accepting sponsors, and a waiting list to attend remains open.
Images: Flickr, Michigan Engineering
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