FRONTIER CASCADIA OFFICIAL PARTICIPATION RULES

1. ELIGIBILITY

Frontier Cascadia is intended for high school students in grades 9 through 12, with exceptions allowed on a per-criterion basis for other student levels.

All participants must complete the required registration process.

Participants under 18 must have all required parent or guardian permissions and waivers completed before participating.

2. TEAM SIZE

Teams may consist of 1 to 4 participants.

Participants may compete individually.

Each participant may belong to only one project team.

3. PROJECT DEVELOPMENT

Projects must be substantially created during the hackathon.

Before the event, participants may brainstorm ideas, create designs or sketches, read documentation, and set up an empty repository containing boilerplate, frameworks, and dependencies.

Participants may not begin the event with the core functionality of their project already implemented.

Previously created general-purpose libraries, APIs, frameworks, open-source software, and publicly available tools may be used, within reasonable intent.

4. PROJECT REQUIREMENTS

Projects must include a functional implementation that judges can evaluate.

Eligible projects may include software, hardware, web applications, mobile applications, games, AI systems, browser extensions, and other technical projects.

Participants must disclose major third-party technologies, APIs, datasets, frameworks, and other resources used in their project.

5. SUBMISSION DEADLINE

All projects must be submitted through Devpost by 5:30 PM Pacific Time on September 12, 2026.

Late submissions may be disqualified unless an exception is explicitly granted by the organizers because of a technical or administrative issue.

6. DEMONSTRATION AND JUDGING

Teams must be prepared to demonstrate their project to the judging panel.

Judges must be able to reasonably verify what the project does.

Projects will be judged according to the official Frontier Cascadia judging criteria.

The decisions of the judges and Frontier Cascadia organizers are final.

7. IN-PERSON AND REMOTE PARTICIPATION

Frontier Cascadia supports both in-person and remote participation.

Remote participants follow the same hacking and submission schedule and will present their projects remotely.

The Grand Prize, Runner-Up, Third Place, and Crowd Favorite awards are restricted to eligible in-person projects.

Remote participants remain eligible for the Frontier Award and applicable track awards.

8. INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY

Participants retain ownership of the projects they create.

Participants are responsible for ensuring they have permission to use any code, data, media, trademarks, copyrighted material, or other third-party intellectual property included in their project.

9. FAIRNESS

Plagiarism, misrepresentation of work, falsification of project functionality, or submitting work substantially completed before the event may result in disqualification.

Teams must accurately represent what they built during the hackathon.

10. CONDUCT

All participants must follow the Frontier Cascadia Code of Conduct.

Harassment, discrimination, intimidation, threatening behavior, deliberate disruption, or other conduct that creates an unsafe environment will not be tolerated.

Organizers may remove any participant whose conduct violates event policies or threatens the safety or integrity of the event.

11. ORGANIZER DISCRETION

Frontier Cascadia may interpret these rules, resolve disputes, correct errors, and make reasonable changes when necessary to preserve the fairness, safety, or operation of the event.

Any material changes will be communicated to participants.