XLR8

XLR8: XLR8 is an intensive 8-hour hackathon challenging teams to develop innovative solutions for municipal governance. Participants will create a unified, transparent platform for citizens to report and track civic issues like potholes, broken streetlights, or water logging, ensuring MCD accountability. The event features three review rounds, with the final MVP determining winners. Rules & regulations: Team composition & eligibility: Participation is strictly team-based, with 3–4 members per team. Teams with fewer or more members will not be allowed to participate. All participants must be currently enrolled students, regardless of branch or year. Originality of work: All projects must be original and built during the hackathon timeframe. Use of standard libraries, APIs, and frameworks is permitted. Cloned repositories, copied projects, or ready-made templates used as the core solution will lead to immediate disqualification. Any pre-existing personal code must be declared clearly and should not form the main logic of the project. Mandatory mvp submission: Every team must deliver a working Minimum Viable Product (MVP) by Review Round 3 (MVP Review). Incomplete, non-functional, or concept-only submissions will not be judged, regardless of idea quality. The final winners are decided solely based on the MVP demo and presentation in this round. Github usage & submission rules: Each team must maintain a GitHub repository, which is mandatory. The repository must include a README file containing at minimum: Problem Statement and Tech Stack. The commit history will be reviewed to verify that development occurred during the hackathon. Repositories must be updated before the MVP Review round; late updates will not be considered. Use of generative AI: Use of AI tools (ChatGPT, Copilot, etc.) is fully allowed but AI-Powered Execution Platforms like Emergent, Lovable, Bolt, etc. are NOT allowed. Teams may be asked to explain their implementation to ensure understanding. If prompts are used extensively, teams should be prepared to share them if requested by judges. Demo & presentation: Each team must give a live demo of their product during the MVP Review. Slide-only presentations are not allowed unless technical failure occurs. Demo time is strictly limited (3-minute demo + 2-minute Q&A). Judges will not evaluate features that cannot be demonstrated live. Review rounds: Round 1 (10:00 AM - Idea Review): Teams must verbally explain their problem statement and proposed solution. Importance is placed on clarity and potential impact. Round 2 (01:30 PM - Progress Review): Midpoint check on prototype/code progress. Basic scoring on teamwork, time management, and division of tasks. Round 3 (05:00 PM - MVP Review): Final demo and presentation. MVP must be complete. This round alone determines the winners. Judging criteria: Problem clarity & impact (20%) Solution quality (25%) Innovation & technical depth (20%) UX & demo (15%) Feasibility & scope (10%) Track relevance (10%) Scoring on a 1-5 scale per criterion, multiplied by weight for a total of 100 points. Conduct, ethics & disqualification: Teams must maintain professional behavior, fair contribution, and mutual respect. Harassment, misuse of data, scraping real personal data, or harmful content will result in disqualification. All participants must follow the Code of Conduct; organizers reserve the right to warn, remove, or disqualify teams for violations. Privacy & data: No scraping or handling of real PII/records. Use mock or anonymized data only. Awards: Top 2 teams will be recognized as Grand Prize (Overall 1st) and Runner-up (Overall 2nd).