The Ultimate 24-Hour Challenge

The Bath Computer Science Society's official hackathon is back for 2026, and it's bigger than ever. Join us for an entire day (literally) for hacking, learning, building, and sharing fun memories with your friends.

The goal is simple: build something cool that will impress the judges, and win some of our incredible prizes. We're looking for innovation and creativity, not just sheer complexity. It's super fun, inclusive, and perfect for all levels of ability.

It's open to all students at Bath and we have loads of non-CS participants joining us every year. Are you ready for the best 24 hours of your life?

Sign-ups are now full!

Tracks

Prizes are attached to tracks, which give you a guiding aim for your project. You don't have to commit at the start, and your project will be automatically considered for all relevant tracks.

The remaining tracks will be released on the day during the induction presentation!

Click on a track to view more detail. Prizes shown are per member of your team.

  • Hackers' Choice

    People are great, and we famously always make good decisions as a group. The biggest decision of your collective lives is now upon you! Who’s got the funniest project? Which one really tugs at your heart strings? Which do you think is just the best? It really is up to you! Absolutely anything qualifies for this track; you don't even have to write any code!

    Prize

    Bambu Lab A1 mini 3D Printer (each)

  • Best Overall

    Our judges will be looking for the project that simply outperforms the competition in all possible ways. They're expecting something that's got it all: great design, high-quality code, a well thought-out architecture, and inspiring team collaboration. The actual topic of your project is completely up to you: try to choose something meaningful that could solve a real-world problem.

    Prize

    AOC 34 inch 2k Ultrawide 180Hz Monitor (each)

  • Most technically impressive

    Multimatic

    This is for those grinders, those people who somehow do 48 hours of work in 24 hours. We are looking for those projects which are just absolutely insane and boggle the minds of our judges and question our whole lives.

    Prize

    DJI Neo, Mini Drone (each)

  • Most Commercially Viable

    Ditch Carbon

    Ditch carbon came to us in a dream, as was like, what if students tried to make something that could make the most amount of money. Maybe even build a company. Crazy stuff. So we decided to have this track and find the students with the most potential to create a business, or even create a business in 24 hours. Speed run to £1 million?

    Prize

    Keychron K2 HE Wireless Custom Mechanical Keyboard with Hall Effect Magnetic Switches (each)

  • Best design

    Sparklayer

    Looks looks looks! That's what its all about. We are looking for the coolest most amazing looking design. No coding actually required, just have a good plan for what you are building. Hell use scratch!

    Prize

    HUION Medium Wireless Drawing Tablet (each)

  • Best use of AI

    Belmont Lansdown

    So AI is become a massive thing, good or bad. We want to focus on the good and what can be used for good. Therefore this is for those people who just can't stop talking to their AI partner and is thinking about proposing. Can you use AI to create something just spectacular, we expect AI to be embedded from the ground up and solving a problem that your laptop left alone in your cupboard could just do.

    Prize

    De'Longhi Stilosa EC230.BK, Traditional Barista Pump Espresso Machine (each)

  • Embedded

    XMOS

    Bath Hack couldn't be complete without our renowned partnership with XMOS. This track is for those people who think the end of the world was caused by the centralisation of CPU cores to this useless piece of machinery, why should it crash when I click my mouse? So we are looking for electronics cobbled together into something at least somewhat functional and just seriously impresses us and helps fight this incessent dominance by Intel, AMD and ARM.

    Prize

    DS3 Portable DAC and XMOS XCORE.AI Vision Development Kit

Schedule

This schedule is indicative so you can plan your availability. We'll release more detail nearer to the time.

Click on each item to see more information.

  • Fri 27th Mar

    Team-mate finding session

    CB 3.9 17:15-19:15

    Need some more team-mates? Come along to our session on Friday in the Chancellors' Building! We'll have fun activities through which you can meet new people and build your group. If you don't want a team, you're also welcome to enter solo!

  • Sat 28th Mar

  • Induction presentation

    CB 1.10 11:00-12:00

    Attending the induction presentation is mandatory. We'll introduce the rules of the event, and you'll get to hear about our sponsors. Most importantly, we'll reveal the full list of tracks and what the judges are expecting for each of them. Don't worry if you're late arriving, as our front desk will be open for registering throughout the event.

  • Hacking starts

    12:00

    Get started with hacking! You'll have exactly 24 hours to build and document your project. Our Committee Members will be there to help with coding or practical issues, so look out for them in their hoodies.

  • Pizza!

    19:00

    That's right! Bath Hack wouldn't be the same without free food. Dinner, breakfast, lunch, and snacks are all included at no charge whatsoever, thanks to our lovely sponsors! We'll be serving Domino's pizza for dinner. A range of options will be available to meet all dietary requirements, so make sure to specify them when you sign up!

    Please note that due to the way pizza is transported and stored, gluten free pizzas cannot be 100% guaranteed contamination-free. If you're not comfortable eating any type of Domino's pizza, please clarify this in your dietary requirements, and we'll try to find an alternative.

  • Sun 29th Mar

    Midnight games

    00:00

    Sleep is boring! Come along instead to our midnight games session. We'll be doing a fun challenge to be announced during the induction presentation, with a chance to win some more prizes.

  • Breakfast

    08:00

    We'll set out a range of pastries, toast, jams, butter, and cold/hot drinks for breakfast. This is on top of the other snacks that will be available throughout the event.

  • Hacking ends & lunch

    13:00

    You'll need to finish your coding exactly on time, and make a submission to our Devpost page. Our Committee will be there to help you should anything go wrong. It's really important to submit by the deadline to ensure our judging can take place efficiently. We might accept late submissions, but we won't necessarily be able to judge them equally to on-time projects.

    We'll be providing a range of fresh Subway sandwiches for lunch to meet all dietary requirements, completely free of charge.

    But wait 13:00? Is that a mistake???? No, don't worry, we are just accounting for daylight savings!!

  • Showcase Fair

    13:30-16:00

    Our judges will go around and visit your project. Be prepared to give them a cool demonstration; often, the most creative demos win the best prizes! A lot of your chances depend on this, although your project itself should be impressive, too. You'll also take turns visiting other projects and decide on a Hacker's Choice vote.

    We're allowing a longer time than usual for the Showcase Fair to ensure judges can comfortably view all projects given the extremely large number of participants.

  • Prizegiving Presentation

    16:30-17:00

    The moment you've all waited for! We'll conclude the event with a summary of the amazing projects you'll all have inevitably created, and hand out our incredible prizes.

Our sponsors make the event possible: they fund our food, snacks, prizes, t-shirts, and everything else. We're immensely thankful to them, as Bath Hack would not be able to run without their support! Many of them will be present at our careers fair for some valuable networking.

GitHub Multimatic SparkLayer XMOS Telekinetix CiteAb Belmont Lansdown HPE DitchCarbon lowRISC

The following non-sponsor organisations are also generously supporting the event:

Department of Computer Science University of Bath Students' Union

FAQs

Accessibility

The event will use the entirety of the Chancellor's Building, with presentations taking place in the ground-floor lecture theatres as well as the other classrooms. Designated spaces can be used for hacking and these have adjustable lighting. There is step-free access to all rooms, and most presentations are in rooms with powered doors. A quiet dark area will be available for resting. There are gendered, ungendered and accessible toilets and water fountains on all floors and Committee Members will be available and happy to help throughout the entire event.

Please email [email protected] if you have any questions about accessibility.

You can use either your own laptop/devices, or the computer labs on floors 4 and 5.

About BCSS

This event has been organised by the Committee of the Bath Computer Science Society. We put lots of effort into organising it each year and aim to make it bigger and better every time.

BCSS is a member society of the University of Bath Student Union and is also a student chapter of the British Computing Society. We are a society for anyone with any interest in Computing, open to any student studying any degree. Our key aim is to encourage more people into the field, as well as to teach important industry skills to help encourage our members to grow.

Find out more about BCSS.