Welcome to the KiroHacks Hackathon, hosted by Cal Poly's CS+AI Club! Join us at the MAC on May 2nd for a full-day, in-person hackathon where you'll have 13 hours (11:00 am–11:59 pm) to ideate, build, and showcase a project from scratch alongside fellow Mustangs using the Kiro IDE. All projects will be judged on a 60-point rubric across three criteria: project implementation, project innovation and design, and overall social good. The hackathon challenge theme and tracks will be annouced on the day of the hackathon, May 2nd.

During the hackathon, every competitor will receive free access to Kiro through thier school account, and AWS representatives will be on-site for networking, brainstorming, and debugging throughout the day. Attendance is capped at 300 Cal Poly students, so spots are limited. Build something that matters, we'll see you in there! All students must RSVP before the event! RSVP: Here

Schedule

  • 9:30 am | Check in
  • 10:00 am | Opening Remarks
  • 10:10 am | Fireside Chat with Toptal and Noyce
  • 10:30 am | Intro to Kiro
  • 11:00 am | Hacking Begins
  • 1:00 pm - 2:00 pm | Lunch
  • 5:00 pm | In-person Event Ends
  • 11:59 pm | Submissions Due Online

Lunch will be provided! However, breakfast and dinner are not.

Win an interview with AWS's Agentic AI team! 

Top hackathon finishers will earn a guaranteed initial interview—seniors for full-time roles and all other classes for internships—with one of the most innovative teams at Amazon Web Services. To be eligible, candidates must meet basic qualifications including being 18+, having experience with at least one general-purpose programming language (Java, Python, C++, C#, Go, Rust, or TypeScript), and enrollment in a Bachelor's degree or above in Computer Science or related STEM field.

Requirements

What to Build

To be annouced...

What to Submit

Submissions to the Hackathon must meet the following requirements:

    • Repo Url: Provide a URL to your open source code repository for judging and testing. 
      • The code repository must be public with an approved OSI Open Source License
      • Your repo must contain the /.kiro directory at the root of the project to show usage of specs, hooks, and steering. Do NOT add the /.kiro directory or sub-folders to your .gitignore, as this could disqualify your submission.

    • Project URL: Provide a URL to your functional application(s) if applicable

      • You can provide login credentials in public code repo

    • Video Demo: Include a three (3) minute demonstration video of your submission. Videos must be uploaded to YouTube, Vimeo, or Facebook Video and made public and judges are not required to watch beyond 3 minutes.

    • Track Alignment: Identify which track you feel your project most aligns with. 

    • Kiro Powers: Provide a write up on how Kiro was used. Judges must understand how effectively you used Kiro to develop your project. Show us your next-level understanding of Kiro features, e.g.:

      • Vibe coding: How did you structure your conversations with Kiro to build your project? What was the most impressive code generation Kiro helped you with?

      • Agent hooks: What specific workflows did you automate with Kiro hooks? How did these hooks improve your development process?

      • Spec-driven development: How did you structure your spec for Kiro to implement? How did the spec-driven approach improve your development process? How did this compare to vibe coding?

      • Steering docs: How did you leverage steering to improve Kiro’s responses? Was there a particular strategy that made the biggest difference?

      • MCP: How did extending Kiro’s capabilities help you build your project? What sort of features or workflow improvements did MCP enable that otherwise would have been difficult or impossible?

Hackathon Sponsors

Prizes

$5,250+ in prizes
+ other prizes
1st Place Grand Prize
$3,000 in cash
1 winner

2nd Place Grand Prize
$1,500 in cash
1 winner

3rd Place Grand Prize
$750 in cash
1 winner

Track Winners
4 winners

Super Secret Goodie Bags

Bonus Prize Winners
1 winner

????????????

Devpost Achievements

Submitting to this hackathon could earn you:

Judges

TBD

TBD

Judging Criteria

  • Implementation (20 pts)
    Was there a thoughtful strategy to how you approached AI development? Does the project leverage interesting integrations and functionality beyond the basics or in surprising ways?
  • Innovation & Design (20 pts)
    How creative and original is the project concept/solution? Is the design intuitive, polished, and intentional?
  • Social Good (20 pts)
    Does the project solve a real, clearly defined problem in a scalable and realistic way? How does the user journey address unique needs of the affected community?

Questions? Email the hackathon manager

Invite others to compete

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