Concept

Official hackathon website

While the term “hackathon” (a portmanteau of hack and marathon) has traditionally been used to describe meetups of software developers to collaborate on projects, the ACADIA 2015 Hackathon is calling for an open interpretation of a design outcome with or without code. The term “hack” needs to be understood as an opportunity living in the blindspot of current systems or workflows, or as a critical act against workflow and data barriers. The ACADIA 2015 Hackathon will celebrate speculation and will question the positivity, exclusivity, and inaccessibility that technology and innovation comes bundled with. We will encourage a creativity that challenges a system of expectations. For doing this, we will form several international collectives that will collaborate to come up with an outcome by the end of the day.

There will be an “open source” attitude behind the hackathon, where all screens are available to anyone. Following TopLap’s “show me your screens” motto, we will have one large monitor displaying the progress of one of each team’s champion. The hackathon is not a workshop. We do not expect to establish a student-tutor relationship but rather a collaborative environment where anyone is encouraged to showcase ideas and skills.

Challenge

“Silos – and the turf wars they enable – devastate organizations. They waste resources, kill productivity, and jeopardize the achievement of goals.” - Patrick Lencioni, Silos, Politics and Turf Wars

We live in a world of siloed models and data. Even with powerful computational tools at our disposal, we often have to painfully transfer our information from one proprietary system to another.   Over the course of a one-day hackathon, teams will work together to explore a range of topics focused on interoperability between design systems, the translation from digital to physical, the novel uses of data to inform the design, and uses of emerging technologies to create new design opportunities.  

SIEGECRAFT aims to break down design workflow barriers by creating new solutions that allow for the fluid use of data throughout the entire product lifecycle from design to simulation to documentation, fabrication, and delivery.  We hope teams will explore a range of new workflow opportunities that leverage cloud-based technologies, mobile device interfaces, desktop application APIs, and digital fabrication.    

$2,500 in prizes

Hackathon registration is free with conference registration. If you're not attending the conference, general admission to the hackathon can be found at this link.

• Creativity
  Successful hacks will provide a novel solution to a real workflow challenge.
• Contribution to Field
  Successful hacks will extend existing research and development in interoperability.
• Innovation
  Successful hacks will push the boundaries of technologies available to hackathon teams.
• Relevance
  Successful hacks will build on themes and ideas from the ACADIA 2015 conference.
• Mind-Blowingness
  Successful hacks will do something really, really, really cool.