Your first space hackathon: what nobody tells you

HackAthlone 2026, Athlone’s local event of the NASA Space Apps Challenge, runs from Friday 13 November at 17:00 to Sunday 15 November at 18:00, in the Engineering Building at TUS Athlone. It’s free and in person. If it’s your first hackathon, start here.

You can come on your own

You don’t need a team to register, and you don’t need one when you arrive. Space Apps teams can have 1 to 6 members, and you can join or change your team until the hackathon closes on 15 November.

Many teams form on the Friday evening. In past years, the evening started with the registration check at the Engineering Building desk and HACK101, a briefing on the weekend, the challenges, NASA open data and the judging criteria. Then came Pitch-Fest, where everyone got 30 seconds on stage to pitch an idea, a gap in their team or their own skills. In 2024, the schedule followed it with a team formation session, with a QR code for each challenge on display in the atrium so people interested in the same challenge could find each other.

Green Guardians, one of our past teams, put it well: “I was inspired by the technology and amazed at how much people could build in just 48 hours, often with teammates they had just met.”

Nobody expects you to know the data

NASA datasets are big, and the file formats look strange the first time you meet them. That’s normal. Start with one place, one time period and one question, and grow from there.

Ask for help early. Other teams, mentors and organisers would much rather answer a question on Saturday morning than find you stuck at teatime. From 3 November you can also use Space Apps Connect, the free Space Apps forum, where its “Navigators and NASA subject matter experts will be available to answer your challenge and data-related questions”.

The first hours are for planning

The urge to start building straight away is strong. Resist it for an hour. Agree on what you’ll show the judges on Sunday, then work backwards from there. Write the plan where everyone can see it, like a whiteboard or a shared doc.

Space Apps is realistic about scope. Its Team Formation Guide says participants “are not expected to submit a fully developed project at the end”. A small thing that works beats a big thing that doesn’t.

You don’t have to stay up all night

The Engineering Building stays open all weekend, and many people hack through the night. You don’t have to. Bring a sleeping bag or pillow if you want to nap at the venue, or go home and come back fresh. A rested team pitches better than an exhausted one.

Sunday comes faster than you think

Local judging happens on the Sunday, so the local deadline comes well before the 18:00 finish. We’ll confirm the exact time before the event.

There are also two separate things to hand in. Your presentation goes to our judges in Athlone. Your project page goes to Space Apps on spaceappschallenge.org, and that’s what makes your team eligible for global judging. Space Apps closes project submission at 23:59 local time on Sunday, but don’t leave it that late. Once your team submits, everyone on it gets a participation certificate on their Space Apps profile.

The pitch is short

In 2025, each team had a 5-minute slot: 3 minutes to present and 2 minutes for the judges’ questions. We’ll confirm the 2026 format before the event. Three minutes goes very quickly, so rehearse with a timer on Saturday evening, not on Sunday morning.

Small things that help

• Install software and download anything big before you travel. The venue Wi-Fi is shared by everyone in the building.
• Bring your laptop, chargers and photo ID. An extension lead will make you popular.
• Keep notes as you go. By Sunday morning you won’t remember why you made a decision on Saturday.
• Drink water, and eat proper meals as well as snacks.
• Be kind to the team next to you. At some point you’ll need to borrow their charger.

Anything we didn’t cover here is probably in the FAQs, from parking to overnight stays.