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CalBlanco edited this page Nov 18, 2025 · 3 revisions

NLP + HCI Hackathon (Dumbathon)

Dumbathon? Yes, Dumbathon.

Using your NLP, Comp Sci, Stats, Linguistic, Design, and Human Interaction knowledge you will need to make something dumb, silly, fun, or outright annoying.

Something you would never actually want to see in the wild.

Inspired by events like this or this.

The Dumbathon will be taking place from 11/12/2025 to 11/14/2025. With two asynchronous days to develop your project, and a final in person work / celebration day with a judging panel.

There will likely also be snacks

Why would I do this?

That is an excellent question! Maybe because you are cool! Or even because you are awesome!

The main focus of this event is to build a stronger community in the NLP cohorts. We want to remove any kind of pressure and just enjoy our time together.

Prizes

The prizes are the friends you will make along the way. Maybe even some extra NLP merch we have laying around in an office somewhere ;).

2025 Prizes:

  1. Hand Drawn Labubus
  2. A paper plate (signed by Cal)
  3. A UCSC Pen stolen from the front desk

Judging

2025 Judging Panel

  1. Jeff Flanigan
  2. Kristina Alvarez
  3. Carmen de Almeida
  4. Sabina Hernandez

Judging Criteria

  • Overall Dumbness
  • Bad User Experience
  • Waste of Time (Effort)
  • Personal Judge Enjoyment (X-Factor)

Teams

Teams will be a mix between 1st, and 2nd years. All teams will be randomly generated to foster making new connections. We will do our best to ensure teams have a reasonable amount of both cohorts represented.

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