Published using Google Docs
TreeHacks 2026 Ultimate Guide
Updated automatically every 5 minutes

TreeHacks 2026 Ultimate Guide 🌲

We're pumped to see you at TreeHacks 2026! Here's a comprehensive guide

of everything you need to know about TreeHacks — if we missed anything, send a message in #ask-an-organizer on Slack, and we'll help you out asap.

This doc will be updated with more information as we get closer to the event.

📍 Time & Location 📍

TreeHacks 12 will take place February 13 - 15, 2026 in the following two buildings:

475 Via Ortega, Stanford, CA 94305. Location here.

350 Serra Mall, Stanford, CA 94305. Location here.

Registration will take place outside of Huang. Almost all of our events are in Huang and some in Packard, but we'll have a few that take place elsewhere. Volunteers or organizers will lead you to any other event locations at the time of the event.

📦 Packing list 📦 

⏰ Schedule ⏰ 

The full event schedule will be updated as we approach the weekend. The schedule can be found here.

We're going to have all kinds of performances, fun events, and food! Check out the schedule for details on some incredible speakers related to our challenges and all kinds of awesome workshops.

Here are some key times to be aware of:

2/13 Friday

2/14 Saturday

2/15  Sunday

🌐 Useful links 🌐

💬 Slack 💬 

We are using Slack to communicate this year. Please use any of these links to join our slack. Try a different link if one of these doesn’t work.

Slack Link #1

Slack Link #2

Slack Link #3

Slack Link #4

☁️ Wifi ☁️

You can connect to the network called “TreeHacks.” There are ethernet switches and cables accessible from most tables. If you need help locating ethernet, have connection issues, or want a static IP, message an organizer on Slack.

The TreeHacks wifi password is “treehacks2026!”.

🚙 Parking 🚙 

All travel logistics have been communicated through your portal or via email. If you have any questions about travel, let us know on Slack or via email. If you drove to Stanford, you can park your car at Via Ortega Lot or Roble Field Garage for free after 4pm on Friday!

⚙️ API Credits ⚙️

Some of our sponsors have generously offered credits for their platforms, and be redeemed below:

📣 Tracks 📣

We are excited to announce our 8 tracks for TreeHacks 2026:

You can find all of our sponsors on our website—more information on track/sponsor prizes coming soon!

🔌 Hardware 🔌 

We have a huge supply of hardware for you to hack on! You can see everything and rent it at our hardware lab during the weekend of TreeHacks (a complete list coming soon).

We're also excited to have access to the Product Realization Lab, a makerspace at Stanford! The PRL is located in Room 36 in the basement of the Huang Engineering Center. If you're planning to work on a hardware hack, the PRL is an awesome place to build; it has soldering irons, 3D printers, laser cutters, oscilloscopes, materials, tools, and pretty much everything else you'll need to build an incredible hack.

You will need to complete an online safety quiz and in-person safety training to use the PRL.

We will not have a drone room this year.

❗ Rules ❗

In order to be eligible to win a prize, your team and project must follow all of the guidelines of TreeHacks:

  1. all members of your team must have checked-in to TreeHacks and have your TreeHacks badge
  2. at least one member of your team must be physically present to demo your project to judges on Sunday (check schedule for specific time)
  3. all building must have taken place during hacking hours (9:30pm on Friday, Feb. 13 - 9:30am on Sunday, Feb. 15).
  1. Note: ideation and planning is allowed (and encouraged) before the hackathon, but all coding/building must take place during hacking hours.
  2. We will take steps to verify that the work you submit is your own, and was built during the event.
  1. your team must be at max 4 people

🏆 Judging & Criteria 🏆

In order to be judged, you'll need to submit your project on Devpost (link coming soon). On the Devpost, you give all the information about your project, including your team and the prizes you'd like to be considered for, including any challenges you might have hacked in.

In order to win a prize, you must be physically present during judging to demo your project to the judges.

Judging takes place during an expo, where you will present your project to judges as they walk around to you. The expo is also when sponsors decide  their prize winners. You will have max 5 minutes to speak with each judge, so be ready to work through your demo quickly. Judges will move on at 5 minutes to the next project. Also, be sure you're showing your product rather than just a slideshow; hackathons are all about what you learn and build! Along with this, you 100% should still demo even if your project isn't finished.

Note: There are no power outlets available in the judging area.

Finally, the top teams will be announced and present at our closing ceremonies, where they will demo their projects for everyone.

Judging is based on three criteria:

  1. Creativity

We want hackers to create a project that makes you say “wow” and tell all your friends about it. We're looking for projects that think so far outside the box that you begin to wonder why there was a box at all in the first place.

  1. Technical Complexity

In only 36 hours, hackers manage to build projects with remarkably complex infrastructures built on excitingly advanced frameworks. We hope to see projects that are really running some beautiful code or hardware under the hood.

  1. Social Impact

We're looking for hacks that are the blueprints for change that will impact future generations in humanity's most pressing areas of concern in the coming years.

🥇 Prizes 🥇

TreeHacks 2026 will have over $500,000 in prizes. We will hand out prizes in the following categories:

  1. Grand Prize (1st, 2nd, 3rd place)
  2. Most Technically Complex
  3. Most Creative Hack
  4. Best Hardware Hack
  5. Most Impactful Hack
  6. Best Beginner Hack
  7. AI Grand Prize
  8. Cloud AI Grand Prize
  9. Edge AI Grand Prize
  10. Inference Grand Prize
  11. Sustainability Grand Prize
  12. Education Grand Prize
  13. Healthcare Grand Prize
  14. Human Flourishing Grand Prize

Additionally, every sponsor that has a challenge will hand out their own prizes. Sponsors will judge their own projects and may have their own criteria to select winners.

You can find our full prize list here!

🌮 Food 🍕

We have lots of yummy food planned throughout the event! Of course, we'll have options for people with dietary restrictions at every meal. Additionally, we'll have snacks and drinks throughout the event! Most meals and snacks on the schedule will be served outside the first floor of Huang near Engineering Quad but keep your eye on Slack and the live site for any updates :)

Some of our foods include…

and tons of snacks/drinks at our snack station!

😴 Sleep 😴

We will have a resting floor available to all hackers and mentors. However, we will not be able to hand out sleeping materials, so please bring your own!

💸 Reimbursements 💸 

In order to have your flight reimbursed, you must attend the event and submit a quality project to our Devpost on time, alongside our other requirements outlined in our travel policy.

If you have an SSN, you must have submitted your tax information to payee.stanford.edu. In the days after filling it out, you should have received an email requesting you to submit your SSN. If you have not done both steps, you will be ineligible for reimbursement. We cannot check if you have done both steps on our end.

If you are an international student or do not have an SSN, we will reimburse you through a separate process after the event.

All reimbursements will be sent in the mail as a Check/Cheque to the address we have on file.

As the system is handled by the university, TreeHacks is unable to check if you have submitted your information or update any of the information you submitted in the past. We cannot update your address or reimburse you through a method other than a check.

We will process reimbursements in the months after the event!

📷 Socials 📷 

Follow us on social media! Instagram, Facebook, Twitter

🤩 Sponsors 🤩

Y Combinator

OpenAI

Google

Midjourney

NVIDIA

Zoom

OpenEvidence

Anthropic

Modal

Logitech

Stanford Ecopreneurship

Human Capital

Greylock

Cerebras

HeyGen

Cursor

Decagon

Warp

Neo

Fetch.ai

Visa

Runpod

Elastic

Browserbase

Zingage

Graphite

Suno

D.E. Shaw

Bright Data

Vercel

Perplexity

Cloudflare

The Interaction Company of California

❓ Questions ❓

Let us know at hello@treehacks.com or post in #ask-an-organizer on Slack!