Bitcamp is a place for exploration. We’re a hackathon that values participant experience and mentorship over competitiveness and points. Come to have fun with your friends, learn something new, eat s’mores, and have a generally awesome time. We have all sorts of crazy activities planned for you...you’ll have to come to find out the rest!
This year, we’ll be weaving Trails into the Bitcamper’s experience. First time camping? Get your feet wet by learning how to build basic hacks in our Scout Trail. Feeling entrepreneurial? Explore the potential of your hack with the Venture Trail. Want to put your skillz to the test? Earn prizes from our checkpoints in the Skills Trail. Thinking about changing the world? Explore building hacks from real-life problems given by NGOs in our Social Impact Trail. Sign up for a Trail here.
A hackathon is a creative coding marathon. Students are encouraged to come with an idea, form teams, and then build out that idea into a product in 36 hours. For Bitcamp, we want you to take something you love (sports! art! camping!) and combine it with technology to make something awesome. It is a great time to push the envelope and learn some new skills.
Don’t bring any firearms, knives, weapons, drugs or alcohol.
Don’t use an old project. Start something new instead!
Please read our Code of Conduct. Organizers will enforce this code throughout the event. We are expecting cooperation from all participants to help ensuring a safe environment for everybody. (TL;DR: Be nice.)
We’ll have buses covering travel from several schools and areas. If there isn’t a bus from your school or area, we’ll be providing reimbursements on an application basis. We cannot reimburse anyone traveling from a school that has a bus. Please see 2015.bit.camp/travel for more information. Contact [email protected] with any questions.
People will arrive between 6pm and 8pm on Friday, April 10, 2015. Dinner is served at 6:30 PM. Our Sponsor Fair is at 8:00 PM, where you can spend time meeting and listening to sponsor talks. Hacking will start at 10pm on Friday and go until 10am on Sunday, April 12, 2015. Closing session will end by 3pm on Sunday.
Bring yourself, a photo ID, your signed waiver (if applicable), clothes, toiletries, a sleeping bag/blanket, your hacker setup and maybe an idea or two.
First, you sign the “permission slip” with your name, school, and email. Later, we will follow up with you with travel reimbursements, liability waivers, resumes, and the sort.
Projects are submitted by teams to ChallengePost. You don’t need to finalize your team until project submissions are due during the event. Teams are limited to four people. You may have a one-person team.
Don’t be afraid if you don’t think you have enough experience, a team or an idea. A hackathon is meant for learning (in fact, see our Scout Trail). We are going to have great mentors to help you out with 3D printing, web development, android, iOS, and everything in between. We will have workshops on all kinds of skills and even a workshop to help you come up with an idea for the weekend.
We use bandanas to help you identify special people from across the room. Sponsors and press are wearing white, mentors are wearing yellow, organizers are wearing red, and volunteers are wearing brown.