Bay Hacks 2026 — Tampa Bay's Innovation Hackathon

Bay Hacks is a 24-hour collegiate hackathon bringing students from across Florida to the University of South Florida to build, compete for prizes, and get their work in front of a panel of judges. Form a team, pick a track, and turn an idea into something real in a single weekend.

Bay Hacks is open to college and high school students 16 and up. Bring your ID to check in.

Mentors and technical workshops run throughout the event. Whether you're writing your first line of code or you've shipped before, every skill level is welcome.

Hosted by Tampa Bay Innovation. Free to attend.

Tracks

• Hardware — embedded systems, robotics, IoT, and wearables
• Sustainability — climate, clean energy, conservation, and tech for a healthier planet
• AI — applied AI and machine-learning projects
• UX University Challenge: Silver Spring Community Intelligence — bring scattered public census and community data together into a queryable map. Full brief below. (Sponsored by UX University.)
• American Circular Challenge: Circular Capture Coach — build an AI camera assistant that checks photos of electronics for quality and tells the user what to re-shoot. Full brief below. (Sponsored by American Circular.)
• Nucleate Florida Healthcare Challenge — design a device, software platform, or integrated system that helps monitor a health condition and turns health data into actionable insight. Full brief below. (Sponsored by Nucleate Florida.)
• Best Use of ElevenLabs — build with ElevenLabs' AI audio & voice APIs. Projects must use ElevenLabs to qualify.
• Best Use of Render — build using Render Workflows. Track winners must use Workflows to qualify.

Sponsored tracks (Nucleate, ElevenLabs, Render, UX University, American Circular) have their own qualification requirements, judging criteria, and prize terms, listed in each track's description above and in the Prizes section below. Check them before you build.

UX University Challenge: Silver Spring Community Intelligence

Public data about a community exists, but it's scattered across census records, county datasets, GIS layers, planning documents, and surveys, and it's hard to actually use. Your challenge: bring that fragmented public data together and make it understandable and queryable.

Map Silver Spring, Maryland, and let a user explore who lives in and around the community, then use Fenton Village (a diverse district of 240+ local businesses) as your first real-world application. Teams are free to pull from Census/ACS, Montgomery County and Montgomery Planning data, GIS, surveys, mobility and business data, and any other public sources.

You won't map all of Silver Spring in 24 hours, but you do need a working MVP by the end, however basic. That's what wins, and the winning team gets to keep building it with UX University. What we're looking for is a strong approach, a sound architecture, and a working proof of concept we could keep building on, one that shows the evidence behind its answers.

The winning team receives $500 and a paid continuation opportunity to keep developing the platform with UX University.

Full challenge brief, data sources, and a map of Silver Spring: https://tampabayinnovation.com/bay-hacks/uxu-challenge

American Circular Challenge: Circular Capture Coach

Build an AI camera assistant that helps someone photograph electronic equipment correctly. Your tool evaluates device photos for problems like blur, poor lighting, bad framing, obstructed labels, and missing required views, then explains what's wrong and tells the user exactly what to re-shoot.

American Circular will provide a dataset built entirely from their own scrap equipment (no customer photos or production data), along with the image format, required photo views, and challenge rules at kickoff. Teams build their own application, AI workflow, and interface from scratch.

Target result: a working web or mobile prototype that evaluates provided device photos and gives immediate, useful retake instructions. A live camera experience is an optional bonus, not required.

Nucleate Florida Healthcare Challenge

Healthcare increasingly extends beyond the hospital. Patients with chronic conditions, recovering from procedures, or at risk of complications often need continued monitoring, but clinicians can't watch every patient continuously.

Your challenge: design a device, software platform, or integrated device-software system that helps patients or clinicians monitor a health condition and transforms collected health data into useful, actionable information. Consider what needs to be monitored, how data is collected, how the patient or clinician interacts with the system, how raw data becomes meaningful insight, what happens when something abnormal is detected, and how it fits into an existing healthcare workflow, including how patient data is stored, transmitted, protected, and kept HIPAA-compliant.

You don't need a fully functional medical device in 24 hours. Build a convincing proof of concept: Figma or UI/UX prototypes, mobile or web apps, CAD models, Arduino/Raspberry Pi/ESP32 or sensor-based builds, wearable concepts, data dashboards, AI/ML prototypes, computer vision, EHR integrations, alert systems, or hardware-software integrations. Focus on depth over building every component.

Schedule

Friday, September 18

• 6:00 PM — Check-in & networking
• 6:30 PM — Opening ceremony (dinner served)
• 7:00 PM — Hacking begins + sponsor keynote
• 8:00 PM & 10:00 PM — Technical workshops
• 12:00 AM — Midnight snack

Saturday, September 19

• 8:30 AM — Breakfast
• 10:00 AM — Workshop
• 1:00 PM — Workshop
• 7:00 PM — Hacking ends & submissions close

Sunday, September 20

• 9:00 AM — Breakfast
• 10:00 AM — Closing ceremony & awards

• Creativity & Originality
  Is the project fresh and surprising? We're looking for original ideas and fresh takes, not clones of existing products.
• Technical Complexity
  How impressive is what's running under the hood, given the 24-hour build window? We reward real engineering, not just a thin wrapper.
• Impact & Usefulness
  Does it solve a real problem for real people? Who benefits, and how much?
• Execution & Polish
  Does it actually work in the demo? Is it usable, clear, and well presented?
• UX University Challenge (this track only)
  Working MVP: is it functional by the end of the 24 hours, however basic? Architecture: is this worth building on? Evidence: does it show the data behind its answers? Application: is the Fenton Village use case real and demonstrated?
• American Circular Challenge (this track only)
  Scored on: correct & useful feedback (30), clear retake guidance (25), working prototype (20), thoughtful use of AI (15), usability & presentation (10). Upload-only prototypes can score full marks; a live camera earns no bonus.
• Nucleate Healthcare Challenge (this track only)
  Does it address a clearly defined healthcare problem? Is the monitoring approach and data-to-insight pipeline sound? Is the proof of concept convincing and realistic within a healthcare workflow? Are privacy and HIPAA considerations addressed?