01Check in, find people
Doors at 8:30 with breakfast. Team matching runs before the opening ceremony, so nobody spends the day building alone unless they want to.
Grades 9 to 12Teams of 1 to 4
Early applications open
BeaconHacks
Build what lights the way.
A free one day hackathon being built for Bay Area high schoolers, targeting January 2027 in Belmont. It is not funded yet and the room is not signed yet. This page says exactly where it stands.
Until Jan 30, 2027 · target, not locked
- Target date
- Jan 30, 2027
- Not locked yet
- Place
- Belmont, CA
- Venue in approval
- Build time
- 14 hours
- One day, no overnight
- Team size
- 1 to 4
- Come alone, that is fine
- Cost
- Free
- If sponsorship lands
Where Beacon is right now
Nothing here is pretending.
Beacon Hacks is being built in the open. Three things have to be true before it is a real event, and none of them are done yet. Anything on this site that depends on them is marked locked rather than stated as fact.
- Gate 1In progress
Venue signed off
A host in Belmont has offered the space and we are waiting on written approval from their facilities team. Until that lands we are not publishing their name.
Locks the date, the address, and the room count
- Gate 2In progress
Day funded
$0 of $10,500 raised. Sponsor outreach is under way and nothing is committed yet. Food, space and prizes all come out of this.
Unlocks prizes and keeps the day free to attend
- Gate 3In progress
Applications open
Early applications are open now. Nobody is confirmed until the room and the money are both real, and everyone who applied hears the same day that changes.
Confirms spots and starts the countdown
Raised toward the day$0 of $10,500
Sponsor outreach is under way. That number updates on this page as money is actually committed, not pledged.
How it goes
Show up alone. Leave with something you built.
Three moves, in order. Nothing about the day assumes you have done this before.
01
02Build for fourteen hours
Mentors on the floor the whole time and short workshops running in parallel. App, game, website, hardware hack: anything you can demo by 9pm counts.
Mentors all dayFood included
03Demo it, win things
No stage, no slides. Judges walk the room and you talk them through what you made. Broken demos welcome, half of them are.
Judged in the roomHome by midnight
Tracks
Three ways to point a light.
Pick one at kickoff or let the judging sort it out at the end. A project can be judged in more than one.
Signal
Cut through noise. Search, summarize, sort, surface. Anything that helps a person find the thing that actually matters to them.
You have a folder, feed or inbox you wish would sort itself.
Landfall
Build for Belmont and the Peninsula. Civic data, schools, transit, small business, anything that makes the place around you work better.
You already have a complaint about how something in your town works.
First Light
Beginners only. Judged on what you learned and what you finished, not how clean the code is. Mentors assigned at kickoff.
This is your first hackathon and you are not sure you belong. You do.
Prizes
Not funded yet.
We are not going to publish cash amounts or hardware that nobody has agreed to pay for. $0 has been raised so far. These are the categories we intend to judge; what sits behind each one appears here as sponsors sign, and not before.
Unlocks at Gate 2, funding
- 01Best overall
- 02Runner up
- 03Third place
- 04First Light, best beginner hack
- 05Landfall, best use of the city
- 06Best design
Six planned categories, so a first build is judged against other first builds rather than against a team that has done this before.
Timetable
One day, nine moments.
8:30 AM to 11 PMMorning8:30 to 12
- 8:30 AM
Doors open
Check in, breakfast, find a seat with power.
- 9:30 AM
Opening ceremony
Rules of the day, track reveal, sponsor intros.
- 10:00 AM
Hacking begins
Team matching runs in the corner for anyone still solo.
- 11:30 AM
Workshop: your first API call
Optional, thirty minutes, nothing to install.
Afternoon1 to 6
- 1:00 PM
Lunch and sponsor booths
Eat, walk the tables, collect stickers.
- 4:00 PM
Workshop: shipping it live
Get your thing on a real URL before dinner.
Night6 to 11Workshops TBD
- 6:00 PM
Dinner, then final sprint
Three hours left on the clock from here.
- 9:00 PM
Submissions close, demos start
Judges walk the room, science fair style.
- 10:30 PM
Awards and closing
Prizes, thank yous, everyone out by 11.
Venue
Belmont, California.
Room to be named.
A host on the Peninsula has offered their space and asked us not to use their name publicly until facilities signs off. That is a reasonable ask, so there is no name, no address and no photo of their building anywhere on this site.
Unlocks at Gate 1, venue approval
- Name
- Announced after written approval
- Address
- Announced after written approval
- City
- Belmont, CA
What we can say: one floor big enough for around a hundred people, breakout rooms for workshops, parking, and a train station within walking distance.
Sponsors
Back Beacon.
Nothing has been raised yet and no company has agreed to back it. Every tier is open, and each includes the ones below it.
Bronze
4 benefits$500
What you get
- Logo on the website
- Thanked by name at closing
- Logo on the prize slides
- Logo on the opening slides
Silver
5 benefits$1,000
Everything in Bronze, plus
- A thirty minute workshop slot
- Logo on the website
- Thanked by name at closing
- Logo on the prize slides
- Logo on the opening slides
Gold
9 benefits$2,000
Everything in Silver, plus
- Up to two mentors on the floor
- Your name on a track prize
- Named on the Gold sponsor slide
- Larger logo on the website
- Logo on the website
- Thanked by name at closing
- Logo on the prize slides
- Logo on the opening slides
- A thirty minute workshop slot
Platinum
17 benefits$4,000
Everything in Gold, plus
- Up to four mentors on the floor
- A “Presented by” lockup
- Largest logo on the website
- Three minutes at the opening
- Hand out an award at closing
- Name a prize category
- A judge on the panel
- Your own slide at opening and closing
- Logo on the website
- Thanked by name at closing
- Logo on the prize slides
- Logo on the opening slides
- A thirty minute workshop slot
- Up to two mentors on the floor
- Your name on a track prize
- Named on the Gold sponsor slide
- Larger logo on the website
In kind
Credited at the matching cash tier- API credits or licences
- Mentors only, no cash
Cash goes to food, space and prizes for high schoolers. Nothing carrying your name goes out until you have signed off on it.
FAQ
Questions, answered.
01What even is a hackathon?
A room full of people building something small and finishing it in a day: an app, a game, a website, a hardware hack. Winning is beside the point. Shipping something with a few other people is the point.
02Can I apply yet?
Yes, early. The application takes two minutes and puts you in the queue. Nobody is confirmed until the venue is signed and the budget is covered, and you will hear the day that happens. If it falls through, you will hear that too.
03Do I need to know how to code?
No. Plenty of attendees write their first real code at an event like this. Mentors are on the floor all day and the First Light track judges effort and learning, not polish.
04What grades can apply?
High school, grades 9 through 12, anywhere in the Bay Area. Bring a school ID for check in.
05Is it actually free?
That is the plan, and it depends entirely on sponsorship. Nothing has been raised yet. If the money does not come together we will say so here rather than quietly charge for it.
06Do I have to stay overnight?
Never. Doors at 8:30am, awards done by 11pm, everyone sleeps in their own bed.