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Banana Hacks

Code of Conduct & Rules

This Code of Conduct covers everyone at Banana Hacks: participants, mentors, judges, and organizers. It applies in Discord, on Zoom, in submitted work, and anywhere else the event happens. Read it before you register.

Reporting a problem

If something happens that this document says should not, tell us. You can use the #help channel in Discord, or email the organizers directly. Reports are read only by the organizing team.

Email team@bananahacks.tech

Who this applies to

Anyone can join, no matter their age, location, or experience. The event is especially friendly to students and first-time hackers. If you are under 18, please read this page with a parent or guardian before registering.

Code of Conduct

Banana Hacks is a virtual event, and conduct online is held to the same standard as an in-person one.

Online hackathon standards

  • Banana Hacks happens online, and we hold your conduct here to the same standard as an in-person event. That covers screen shares, Discord messages, project demos, video calls, and anything you submit.
  • Do not record, screenshot, or share another participant's video feed or private messages without asking them first.
  • Do not try to disrupt the event infrastructure. That includes the submission platform, the judging portal, our Discord bots, and organizer tooling.

Be excellent to each other

  • Everyone gets a harassment-free experience here, whatever their gender, gender identity, age, sexual orientation, disability, appearance, race, ethnicity, nationality, or religion.
  • Harassment covers offensive comments, deliberate intimidation, unwanted attention, following someone around the event, and repeatedly interrupting other people's work.
  • Keep sexualised language, imagery, and jokes out of every channel, DM, and submission.

Privacy and safety online

  • Do not post another participant's personal information anywhere, in any form.
  • Phishing, social engineering, malware, or any attack aimed at participants or organizers gets you removed immediately.
  • Found a security hole in our infrastructure? Tell the organizers privately. Do not exploit it and do not post about it.

Academic integrity

  • Everything you submit has to be your team's own work, made during the hacking window.
  • Credit the open-source libraries, datasets, and pre-trained models your project depends on.
  • Generative AI tools are allowed and encouraged. Just say which ones you used when you submit.

Enforcement

  • Depending on what happened, organizers may give you a warning, remove you from the event, or disqualify you from prizes.
  • Report anything that worries you in the #help channel on Discord, or email team@bananahacks.tech. Only the organizing team reads those reports.
  • We also follow the MLH Code of Conduct (mlh.io/code-of-conduct). Banana Hacks is not an MLH member event.

Submission rules

What counts as an eligible project, and what you need to hand in.

Teams

  • Teams are 1 to 4 people. Team up with anyone you like; you don't need to go to the same school or live in the same country.
  • You can only be on one team.
  • Tell the organizers about any team changes before hacking starts.

Hacking window

  • Hacking starts at the opening ceremony and stops at the deadline, Sun Oct 11 at 11:59 PM AoE.
  • Anything you started before the opening ceremony is not eligible for judging.
  • Your code goes in a public GitHub repo, committed inside the hacking window. We check commit timestamps.

What you can build on

  • Open-source libraries, public APIs, and pre-trained models are all fair game. Cite them in your README.
  • We reveal the theme and the challenge details at the opening ceremony, and your project has to address the theme.
  • You don't need hardware. Every project should be demoable over a screen share or at a hosted link.

Submissions

  • Submit through the official portal before the deadline. We don't accept late entries.
  • You'll need a project name, a one-paragraph description, a GitHub link, and a demo video of three minutes or less.
  • Judges score creativity and originality (30%), technical implementation (30%), visual quality and user experience (20%), and potential impact (20%). Those are the same criteria listed on the Prizes page.

Prizes and eligibility

  • If you win, be available for a short demo call with sponsors after the event.
  • Organizers and judges cannot win prizes.
  • Submitting gives Banana Hacks permission to feature your project in promotional material.

Ready?

Register for Banana Hacks, read about the event, or check the FAQ.