The Seattle VR Hackathon returns!
There's lots going on in xR these days! New controllers, new headsets, new tools, and piles of new applications mean that there's never been a better time to try your hand at developing for VR and AR. Come out and join us for a weekend of creativity, innovation, and learning! The Hack Weekend is a smaller version of our annual hackathon, and is a great opportunity to learn, to meet new people, and to get hands-on experience with xR design and development. Over the course of just 48 hours, you'll be amazed at how much awesome stuff you and your team will be able to create! What is a Hack Weekend?
Like a Hackathon, a Hack Weekend is a weekend-long event where people come together to make awesome stuff. It’s an amazing opportunity to meet awesome people and learn. It's different from our hackathons in that it will be a bit smaller, less competitive, and more focused on collaboration. Our theme for this event is "xR for a human connection". This could mean VR for communication, social applications, tools for collaboration and establishing a meeting of minds, or virtual worlds that help people form an emotional connection through empathy or shared experience. The weekend isn't just about technology - it's about design, creation, and problem solving. If you have interest in art, graphics, 3D modelling, film, education, sound design, game design, or business, the hack weekend will be an event you'll enjoy. Who can participate?
The event is open to everyone. We welcome artists, enthusiasts, UX designers, sound artists, software engineers, critics, researchers, film-makers, developers, game designers, testers, psychologists, industry professionals, and more. If you think VR and AR are cool, you are invited to attend. You don't have to be an expert. Attending this event is a great introduction to working with VR and AR, and our organizers and workshop presenters are all dedicated to helping you no matter what your skill level. We welcome everyone, regardless of gender, ethnicity, or background. Younger attendees are welcome, too, but must have an adult present if they are younger than 16 years of age. VR and AR are of great interest to many industries such as medicine, manufacturing, marketing, design, construction, and many more. If you have domain expertise in any field where immersive technologies might be useful, we would love to have you attend, as your insight is key in helping us to solve real problems, even if you've never worked with these technologies before. How much does it cost?
Registration for the weekend costs $70 per attendee. All proceeds go to paying for food, the venue, and other expenses. Anything that's left goes either into prizes and other stuff to make the event cooler or to help us run more events in future. For students, we're offering discounted tickets at a 30% discount ($40), sponsored by UW CoMotion. Students will need to provide proof of enrolment at a K-12 or accredited tertiary institution, or evidence of home-schooling in order to be admitted to the event. We have a limited pool of such tickets available. We aim to run the event as close to cost as possible as we recognize that many people who would like to participate have limited budgets. Folks with limited means for whom the registration cost would impose a significant hardship should reach out to us and we'll see what we can do to get your costs covered in another way. Where will the event be?
The Hack Weekend will be hosted at the University of Washington's CoMotion Labs, a conference space and incubator on Roosevelt Ave in the University District. Due to venue constraints, there is a hard limit on the number of people who can attend this event, so if you are planning to attend, you should register as soon as possible. When is it?
The event will run over the weekend of June 21-23, 2019, starting 6pm Friday and ending 5pm Sunday. Our schedule, below, is tentative at this stage, but unlikely to change significantly. Schedule
Friday
6:00 PM - Welcome Mixer begins
7:30 PM - Hackathon Kickoff / Lightning Rounds / Team Formation
11:00 PM - Doors Close for the Night Saturday
8:00 AM - Doors Open
9:00 AM - Registration / Breakfast
1:00 PM - Lunch
7:00 PM - Dinner
11:00 PM - Doors Close for the Night Sunday
8:00 AM - Doors Open
9:00 AM - Breakfast
12:00 PM - Lunch
1:00 PM - Hacking Concludes / Judging Begins
2:30 PM - Hacker Expo Begins
4:00 PM - Prizegiving
5:00 PM - Doors Close Teams are welcome to begin work on Friday night or wait until first thing Saturday morning. Unlike the VR Hackathon, doors will be closed overnight to help maintain security for other users of the CoMotion space. |