About FamHack

FamHack is a one-day hackathon designed primarily for first-year undergraduate students in the School of Informatics and their academic parents. The event is built around the idea of family, both digital and physical, and turns those academic-family connections into a real team experience.

It is both a competitive technical event and a milestone social event. Families build projects about staying connected as life moves forward, while also taking part in side challenges that give less technical participants meaningful ways to contribute.

Event At A Glance

  • Saturday, 28 March 2026 (TBC), with the final date still being confirmed
  • 8-hour format, currently planned to run from around noon into the evening
  • Venue TBC: Informatics Forum or The Nucleus
  • Up to 250 participants, focused on first-year Informatics students and their academic parents
  • In-person format across the full 8-hour event

Tracks

  • Main Track: build a technology solution about family connectivity and staying in touch as life changes
  • CompSoc Track: a parallel challenge run with the University of Edinburgh Computing Society, details TBC
  • Scavenger Hunt: Inf1A and Inf1B inspired clues and puzzles for teams who want a lower-code challenge
  • Sponsor Tracks: additional side challenges if sponsors are confirmed in time
  • Pre-Event CTF: an optional challenge embedded into the registration site before the hackathon begins

How Teams Work

  • Academic families are the core team unit for the event
  • Parents register the family first on the website and children join later with a family code
  • Volunteer academic parents will help adopt students whose parent is absent or unresponsive
  • Larger families are encouraged to split into sub-groups so they can tackle more than one track

Organising Team

  • Sponsorship: researching funding routes, contacting companies, and assembling the sponsor deck
  • Logistics: venue booking, catering, and day-of operations, with HTB event experience in the team
  • Social Media: promotions, visibility, and driving registrations
  • Website: iterating on the public site, registration flow, and pre-event CTF experience
  • Volunteer Academic Parents: making sure no first year is left without a family on the day

Open Registration