Building a team that ships by Sunday
Space Apps teams can have 1 to 6 people, and 4 or 5 tends to work best. How to find teammates, split the roles and use Pitch-Fest and Space Apps Connect.
By HackAthlone Team
Road to HackAthlone: 28 days to go
Teams in the NASA Space Apps Challenge can have 1 to 6 members. In our experience, 4 or 5 works best, and Space Apps agrees: its 2026 Team Formation Guide calls four to five people “the ideal size for a team”.
“Ship” is tech slang for finishing something people can actually use. At HackAthlone, that means a working demo, a project page and a pitch, all ready on Sunday. Here’s how to build a team that gets there.
Why four or five
Four or five people can cover building, data, design and the pitch without anyone sitting idle. Decisions stay quick, and everyone fits around one table.
Bigger can work. Cea-SAR, our 2025 winners, listed six members on their Space Apps team page. Smaller can work too, but a team of two has to cut its plans hard. You can even enter alone, although Space Apps says “we highly recommend that you work with other participants”.
The jobs on a good team
Think in jobs, not job titles. One person can do two of these, and on a small team they will.
- Builder. Writes the code or builds the prototype. Two builders is a luxury worth having.
- Data wrangler. Finds the dataset, gets it into a usable shape and knows what it can and can’t show.
- Designer. Decides what the user sees. Mock-ups first, on paper or in Figma.
- Storyteller. Owns the project page, the slides and the pitch. In 2025, teams had 3 minutes to present and 2 minutes to answer questions.
- Captain. Keeps time, cuts features that won’t be ready and makes sure the project is submitted.
Space Apps encourages mixed teams. Its guide suggests that participants with non-technical backgrounds team up “with developers, designers, and people with scientific backgrounds”. We wrote more about that in You don’t need to code to win at Space Apps.
Setting up your team online
The official steps are in the Space Apps Team Formation Guide. The short version:
- One person creates the team and becomes the Team Owner. They can do it from the Find a Team page, from a challenge’s Teams tab or from your local event page.
- Everyone on the team must be registered for the same local event. For us, that’s Athlone.
- The Team Owner has to add Team Contact Information, such as a group chat or an email address, so members can reach each other.
- If you’re looking for a team, look for the yellow “Seeking Members” tag. When you ask to join, write a short note about who you are and why you want in. Space Apps asks you not to share private details like your age or address.
- Teams can add members right up until the hackathon ends on 15 November at 23:59 local time.
Pitch-Fest on Friday evening
You don’t need a team before you arrive. In past years, Pitch-Fest on the Friday evening was where many teams came together. Our 2024 event listing on spaceappschallenge.org described it as “a rapid networking event that helps in skill discovery”, with 30 seconds of stage time for everyone.
You can use your 30 seconds to pitch an idea, a gap in your team or your own skills. A good pitch covers your name, what you’re good at, the challenge you’re leaning towards and who you’re looking for. For example: “I’m a final-year software student, I’m good with Python and maps, I like the fire hotspots challenge, and I need a designer and someone who loves presenting.”
The pitches are only the start. When they finish, walk up to the people whose skills you need and say hello.
Space Apps Connect
Space Apps Connect opens on 3 November. It’s a free, optional forum for participants, Local Leads, Navigators, subject matter experts and the Space Apps team. Its Find a Team category is a good place to look if your team still has a gap.
Agree how you’ll work
A team of new acquaintances needs a few ground rules, and Friday evening, before anyone is tired, is the time to agree them.
- Pick one group chat and keep all team talk there.
- Keep one shared folder and one code repository, not five laptops with five versions.
- Let the captain break ties. If the team can’t agree after a few minutes, the captain decides and you move on.
- Write down your finish line. Agree what you’ll show on Sunday. Anything that doesn’t serve it can wait.
None of this needs to be formal. Five minutes of agreement on Friday saves an hour of arguing on Sunday morning.
If you’re still deciding on a challenge, start with How to choose a Space Apps challenge.
