HackOHIO 12

The Premier Hackathon at Ohio State

October 25-26, 2025
Ohio Union & Online

What is HackOHI/O?

HackOHI/O is Ohio State’s largest annual hackathon. It’s an exciting 24-hour event where 800+ students from 60+ majors come together to code, learn, create, and network. Open to all fields of study it’s built for thinkers, makers, and doers who use technology to solve real problems, and build strong portfolio projects.

Participants form teams to develop tech solutions from scratch or tackle industry challenges, then pitch their prototypes to expert judges for feedback. The event emphasizes rapid innovation, interdisciplinary teamwork, and real-world skill-building.HackOHI/O integrates the KEEN Entrepreneurial Mindset, encouraging Curiosity, Connections across disciplines, and Creating Value through meaningful, impact-driven projects. Top teams may continue their work through the BOSS program with the Keenan Center for Entrepreneurship, including a “golden ticket” opportunity to pitch for up to $50,000 in funding.

HackOHI/O is part of the broader OHI/O ecosystem of hackathons and creative tech events that connect students with mentors, industry, and each other. It’s a welcoming space to build skills, explore ideas, and make an impact!

Christina Cacioppo

2025 Keynote Speaker

We’re thrilled to announce Christina Cacioppo, cofounder and CEO of Vanta, as the opening speaker for Hack OHI/O! An Ohio native, Christina has built one of the fastest-growing companies in security and compliance automation. Since launching Vanta in 2018, she’s led it to remarkable success, surpassing $100 million in annual recurring revenue and reaching a $2.5 billion valuation in 2024. Before founding Vanta, Christina worked at Dropbox and Union Square Ventures, experiences that inspired her to solve the tedious challenges of security compliance. Her entrepreneurial drive started early, at age 11, she ran her own Beanie Baby business on eBay! Join us to hear Christina’s story of building one of the most innovative companies and to get inspired to build something extraordinary yourself.

HackOHI/O 2025 Report

Wrap Up Report

HackOHI/O 2025 brought together more than  675 students and 125+ volunteers for a fast-paced weekend of creativity and technical exploration. 190 Teams were formed and we saw another year of increases in the number of projects submitted for judging.

The event underscored OHI/O’s mission to bridge classroom learning with real-world problem solving, To see the full breakdown of participation, project highlights, and event insights, click through the complete HackOHI/O 2025 Report on the left.

Winners

Place Team Description Video
1st Place – General Track Team 220 – Awesome Dragons GuruAI is an AI-powered web application to help teachers by recording lessons and providing real-time feedback on lesson strengths and weaknesses.
2nd Place – General Track Team 217 – that’s why we clash MolViz AI is an advanced AI-powered molecular analysis platform designed to revolutionize the field of drug discovery and molecular research.
3rd Place – General Track Team 49 – Lockheed Lovers An AI-powered Scheduling Solution for The Ohio State University
CSI Best AI Integration Team 246 – What the Duck What the Duck is a teach to learn website where you explain concepts to “ducks” of varying expertise that listen, question, and challenge you to fill knowledge gaps, turning passive LLM use into active understanding.
Most Social Impact Team 136 – Norton Antivirus AI-Powered Roommate Solutions. Using AI to help with all aspects of dorm management, including location sharing, chore distribution, and conflict mediation.
Most Technical Team 126 – Team Buck MediMoji builds visual communication tools for patients who don’t speak English, struggle with jargon in their native language, or are visual learners.
Most Original Team 79 – MVNU-Kenyon Pchz is a modern, real-time web platform designed for sharing and engaging with short-form video pitches—think “YouTube meets TikTok, but for projects, talent, and collaborations.”
Capstone Winner Team 256 – ARMageddon The purpose of this project was to prototype a parallel gripper brake system designed to test and validate the torque-holding capacity of robot arm motor brake designs.
1st Place – Honda Team 48 – Random ah team AI Powered Camera and congestion tracker that logs movement and noise level within buildings.
2nd Place – Honda Team 166 – Triple A for the W OSU Smart Parking is a full-stack application to track real-time surface parking lots and garages to reduce frictions caused by searching for available parking spots.
3rd Place – Honda Team 56 – log-ic bait Our project is a cross-platform mobile app designed to simplify transportation around The Ohio State University campus.
1st Place – AEP Team 229 – Bia The Dynamic Grid Analyzer is a web-based simulation tool designed for real-time power grid monitoring, vulnerability analysis, and automated remediation.
2nd Place – AEP Team 6 – Hack Ops An intelligent web-based system for transmission planners to calculate and visualize real-time power line ratings, perform N-1 contingency analysis, predict daily load stress patterns, and leverage AI-powered recommendations.
3rd Place – AEP Team 116 – Emmetts Team Dynamic Line Rating System – Real-time transmission line thermal stress analysis

Sponsors

Intel
Google For Education
AWS
American Electric Power Foundation
Lovable
99P Labs
Union Home Mortgage
Veeam

Partners

Center for Software Innovation
Electronics Club
Construct IO
Keenan Center For Entrepreneurship
Engineering Unleashed
Translational Data Analytics Institute
Imageomics Institute
Center for Computing Education
Big Data and Analytics Association Logo
Software Development Club Logo
Diamond Grove Scholars
The Assembly Club
Buckeye Vertical

Competition Info

Challenge Tracks Challenge Information
OHI/O General Track No Constraints! Build Anything Amazing!
Honda Challenge Click Here
American Electric Power Foundation Challenge Click Here
Capstone Track Only open to Capstone Project Teams

HackOHI/O provides opportunities for industry and academic professionals to work directly with students.

Mentors will assist participants throughout the event with any questions or concerns they may have while creating their project. We welcome individuals with knowledge and expertise in various topics to help mentor students at HackOHI/O. This year, mentors can participate both virtually and in-person.

Judges will help us score teams on October 26th by reviewing their projects in the form of a video submission and live discussion with the teams. This year, judges will be virtual only. If you are interested in attending the event in-person and want to judge, please sign up to be a mentor as well.

  Mentors Judges
Time commitment Shifts of 3 hours 3.5 hours
When Between 10:00 AM on October 25th to 10:30 AM on October 26th October 26th, 10:30 AM to 2pm
Where In-person @ the Ohio Union or Virtual via Discord Virtual via Discord
What Give guidance and creative support throughout the event. Use judging criteria to score project videos, provide feedback, and submit teams for awards

Saturday, October 25th

Tentative to change. Most recent information can befound on Discord.

Event Time

Check In

📍 Outside Grand Ballroom, 2nd Floor Ohio Union

 8:00 AM

Breakfast

📍Ballroom + West Entrance

 8:30 AM

Opening Keynote

📍Inside Ballroom

 9:35 AM

Hacking Begins!

📍Inside Ballroom

 10:00 AM

Team Formation

📍Ohio Staters, Inc. Traditions Room

 10:00 AM

Claude API Bootcamp: Bring AI into Your Workflow

Bring AI into your own projects. This workshop will walk you through how to use the Claude API to build custom tools like chatbots and content generators into your projects. Whether you’re a beginner or ready to scale, you’ll leave with practical skills to start integrating Claude into your workflow.

📍Senate Chamber Room

 11:00 AM

AI for Students: Study Better. Find a Job Faster.

Use Claude to supercharge your studying, job search, and project work! Join us for a hands-on workshop where you’ll learn how to use Anthropic’s Claude to create study guides, prep for interviews, and build interactive support tailored to your goals. See how Claude can become your personal academic and career assistant!

📍Senate Chamber Room

 11:30 AM

Lunch

📍Ballroom

 12:00 PM

AWS Workshop

📍Ohio Staters, Inc. Traditions Room

 12:30 PM

DGS Workshop: Design and Pitch Competition: Growing Plants in Space

How do we grow food in space? In this workshop, you’ll take on the role of a space scientist—designing, sketching, and presenting your own plant growth experiment. Teams will brainstorm ideas, create concept drawings, and share their designs in short pitches. You’ll also receive feedback from our judges to help strengthen your skills and prepare for your final Hackathon project presentation.

📍Ohio Staters, Inc. Traditions Room

 1:00 PM

AI Studio Competition

Turn your ideas into AI apps — in one afternoon!
Explore Teachable Machine, Gemini, and Lovable.dev, and create your own working prototype. No coding? No problem. Just bring your curiosity!  1st 50 attendees gets access to Lovable Pro. Non CS majors are welcomed 🤖💡

📍Senate Chamber Room

 1:15 – 3:00PM

🎮 Minigame: Paper airplanes + Bowling

📍Outside Ballroom

 1:30 PM

Imageomics Workshop: Jinkies! It was bad data management all along!

Solve the mystery before it starts: Data management tips and tricks. Learn some useful tools and methods for improved data validation, deduplication, and management.

📍Ohio Staters, Inc. Traditions Room

 1:30 PM

Buckeye Vertical Workshop: Hacking with Vision Foundation Models

Take your hackathon project to the next level with the power of computer vision foundation models. In this workshop, Buckeye Vertical will demystify the theory and show you how to practically integrate the most powerful AI vision tools available today.

Detect & Segment: Use RF-DETR to locate any object with text and SAM to create pixel-perfect masks.

Search & Classify: Build a semantic search engine or zero-shot classifier with CLIP and vector stores.

Reason & Interact: Perform visual Q&A and scene interpretation with VLMs like GPT-5 and Llama 3.2.

Leave with the code and concepts you need to build a standout hackathon project.

📍Ohio Staters, Inc. Traditions Room

 2:30 PM

Assembly Club Workshop: Hack Smart – AI-Powered Ideation & Workstreams

Join the Assembly Club to learn how to leverage AI for rapid project ideation and effective workstream creation. This workshop will cover key prompt engineering tricks, best practices for managing Large Language Models (LLMs), and essential copyright resources to help you build your project responsibly and efficiently.

📍Ohio Staters, Inc. Traditions Room

 3:00 PM

🎮 Minigame: Speed Typing Contest

📍Round Meeting Room

 3:00 PM

TechStars Columbus Start Up Talk

Join Tim Grace, Managing Director of Techstars Columbus, for a short talk + Q&A to learn more about the Techstars Columbus accelerator program.

📍Ohio Staters, Inc. Traditions Room

 3:30 PM

AI Studio Awards Ceremony

📍Senate Chamber Room

 4:15 PM

Career Advice Panel

📍Ohio Staters, Inc. Traditions Room

 5:15 PM

Dinner

📍Ballroom

 6:00 PM

🎮 Minigame: Geoguessor Contest

📍Round Meeting Room

 7:30 PM

🎮 Video Game Tournament

📍Round Meeting Room

 8:00 PM

Union Doors Lock

No-re-entry until 6am.

 11:00 PM

Midnight Snack

📍Ballroom

 12:00 AM

Sunday, October 26th

Event Time
Breakfast

📍Ballroom

 8:00 AM
Hacking Ends!

📍Ballroom

 10:00 AM
Judging Begins

 

📍ONLINE

 11:00 AM
Lunch

📍Ballroom

 12:00 PM
Closing Ceremony

📍Performance Hall, 1st Floor

 4:00 PM

 

 

Place Prize Photo
1st Place – The top overall project of the hackathon. This goes to the team that best combines technical execution, innovation, presentation, and overall impact. Meta Quest 3
2nd Place – The runner up project that demonstrates exceptional quality and execution, narrowly behind the winning submission. Acer Nitro Monitor
3rd Place – The third best overall project, recognized for outstanding work across all evaluation criteria. Sony XM4
CSI Best AI Integration – Awarded to the project that most effectively incorporates artificial intelligence or machine learning technologies in a creative and functional way. Mechanical Keyboard
Most Original – Given to the project with the most unique and innovative concept JBL Charge 5
Most Technical – Recognizes the project with the most impressive technical complexity and implementation, showcasing advanced programming skills. Apple Homepod
Most Social Impact – Honors the project that best addresses a real-world problem and has the greatest potential to make a positive difference in a community. Coffee Machine
Capstone – A special recognition prize for the best projects created through the Capstone track. $75 Amazon Gift Card

HackOHI/O AI Studio is a beginner-friendly, one-day AI track that blends domain expertise with practical AI literacy. Start the day with a real-world talk by an industry expert in your field, then dive into an interactive session that demystifies how AI works, what it can (and can’t) do, and the ethics and data issues you need to know. Think of it as a creative playground with short bursts of AI insight, quick demos, and plenty of time to experiment with your own ideas.

In the afternoon, teams will use no-code/low-code tools and guided prompts to prototype a domain-relevant AII idea, from nursing decision-support sketch to a generative-music experiment or a farm-sensor demo. We emphasize responsible AI, data literacy, and human-in-the-loop design so your project is useful, explainable, and ethically aware.

Frequently Asked Questions

A hackathon is best described as an “invention marathon”. Anyone who has an interest in technology attends a hackathon to learn, build & share their creations over the course of a weekend in a relaxed and welcoming atmosphere. You don’t have to be a programmer, and you certainly don’t have to be majoring in Computer Science. (Definition adapted from MLH organizer guide).

Yes, check out the participant guide here.

This year, we will be hosting a hybrid event that is virtual and in-person. While we encourage teams to attend in person, there are ways for students, sponsors, and mentors to join us virtually and still participate.

It is imperative that all participants, regardless of in-person or virtual status, join the HackOHI/O Discord server to get access to all the event-specific details.

The join link will be sent in a confirmation email after the registration form has been completed.

Everything will work as before, but be virtualized using different technologies. There will still be access to mentors, sponsors, and other hackers. If you plan to attend virtually, be sure to join the HackOHI/O 2025 Discord for pertinent updates when you receive an invitation.

Anyone who is a student at a university! (AKA if you have a .edu email address, undergrads and grad students are both welcome). We encourage all levels of expertise to join. Whether this is your first hackathon, or you’ve been to hackathons around the nation, HackOHI/O provides an opportunity to collaborate and create something amazing. Note, unfortunately, if you are under the age of 18 AND you are not an OSU student you are not eligible to participate (OSU Policy). However, if you are an OSU student under the age of 18, you are eligible to participate. Likewise, if you are not an OSU student AND you are over the age of 18, you are eligible to participate.

Registration for HackOHI/O 2025 is now open! Register by completing the sign-up form. Events are free for all students. There will be a confirmation step two weeks before the event to validate catering expectations. If you have any questions about the registration process, contact registerhackohio@gmail.com.

You can pick a team to join in the Discord server. Teams can be anywhere from 2-4 members, and we require for all participants to be in a team to be eligible for judging. If you are looking for a team, we’ll be providing opportunities before and during the hackathon to find one. We’ll be posting more information on team formation events in our newsletters and on our social media accounts – be on the lookout!

That’s okay! One of the goals of a hackathon is to learn new skills, and we will have mentors available to help you throughout your project. We will also host workshops prior to the hackathon to introduce you to new programming languages and/or tools. And remember, there are other ways to help out a team in their development beyond programming.

Yes, this event is free for all participants! We would like to thank our generous sponsors and supporters for making this possible.

Nope! Many participants come up with their ideas at the hackathon. Challenges presented by our sponsors will be released the week before the event, which also spark idea formation (and the chance for additional prizes!)

The spirit of a hackathon is to see what you can accomplish in one weekend. Although we will not prevent students from entering with pre-built components, when you enter your project for judging we ask that you are honest and transparent with the judges about what and how much was accomplished during HackOHI/O.

HackOHI/O provides opportunities for industry and academic professionals to work directly with students.
Mentors will assist participants throughout the event with any questions or concerns they may have while creating their project and have two timed check in points with teams. We welcome individuals with knowledge and expertise in various topics to help mentor students at HackOHI/O. This year, mentors can participate both virtually and in-person.
Judges will help us score teams on October 26th by reviewing projects, providing teams feedback and completing a rubric form. This year, judges will be virtual only.

Yes, there will! Swag pick-up will happen as you enter HackOHI/O the morning of October 25th. Unfortunately, OHI/O is unable to ship swag to virtual participants. However, virtual participants who win awards will have prizes shipped to them.

Yes! Just mention the person who will pick-up for you in the comments on your signup, or let an organizer know.

HackOHI/O is hosted by OHI/O, an Ohio State student organization. Check out our other events at hack.osu.edu.

HackOHI/O will operate based on the current Safe and Healthy protocols. For more information, visit: https://safeandhealthy.osu.edu/events.

Hosted by OHI/O

OHI/O is a student organization at The Ohio State University dedicated to fostering tech culture at Ohio State and its surrounding communities in Central Ohio. OHI/O hosts multiple events throughout the year, including MakeOHI/O, ShowOHI/O, and High School I/O. Through these events, OHI/O provides students the opportunity to build with real technologies outside of the classroom and connects them with our industry partners.

HackOHI/O 2025 Event Information