Hornet Hacks| Hack A Better Future

Hornet Hacks 4.0 - March 20, 21 and 22

Hornet Hacks is a collaborative initiative organized by the Carlsen Center for Innovation & Entrepreneurship, ACM Sac State, and Hornet Hacks to foster innovation and exploration in the fields of Education, Healthcare, Sustainability, and Open Innovation (Wildcard).

This competitive event is designed to bring together students with a passion for hacking and making an impact. Participants can choose one of the four tracks to build in and generate a solution to a real-world problem in the industry. Teams are encouraged to explore creative approaches and cutting-edge tools to bring their ideas to life, but how they innovate is completely up to them.

The competition is open to teams with a minimum of two members and a maximum of five, allowing for diverse collaborative efforts. Each team will showcase their projects to a panel of judges, who will evaluate them based on innovation, applicability, technical proficiency, and potential impact. We will have $500 in cash prizes per track, a $1000 cash grand prize, and additional in-kind rewards.

Hornet Hacks aims to provide a platform for students to demonstrate their skills, creativity, and vision, while also promoting a culture of learning, exploration, and knowledge-sharing among peers.

Requirements

To Get Started

Find team members, brainstorm what industry is of most interest to you, what problems do you see in the industry, come ready to BUILD!

There will be tons of fun, food, and guidance from our mentors. If you haven’t joined a team yet, hop onto this Discord server to start forming one.

What to Build

This competitive event is designed to bring together students with a passion for hacking and making an impact, encouraging them to develop and innovate using AI in the fields of Education, Finance, Healthcare, and Sustainability*. Participants can choose one of the four fields to build in and will generate a solution to a problem in the industry that is AI enabled.

*Tracks subject to change in the next couple weeks.

What You Will Present

Teams must submit the following materials for their final presentation:

Pitch Presentation – A slide deck (PDF or PPT) summarizing the project, impact, and technical implementation.
Demo Video (Optional but Recommended) – A short video (1 min) demonstrating the solution in action.
Code Repository – A public GitHub or equivalent repository.

Spring 2026 Winners

Anson Washeck holding $1,000 prize check

Overall Winner of $1,000 prize (from the Healthcare Category): Anson Washeck for Veridian - an on-device tablet AI that formats SOAP notes locally, so clinicians get the documentation help they need without any data leaving the tablet or any HIPAA compliance risk.

Open Innovation Winner: Senso

1st Place Open Innovation: $500.00 Winner Senso is solving the problem of low literacy rates for visually impaired children. Their solution is a beginner-level and dynamic braille learning tool.

Healthcare Winner: React2Help

1st Place Healthcare: $500.00 Winner React2Help built an app that provides automated mental health summaries for patients.

Productivity Winner: Tractly

1st Place Productivity: $500.00 Winner Tractly, a comprehensive contract management platform designed to help small businesses centralize their contracts, track deadlines, monitor deliverables, and find better vendor rates.

Sustainability Winner: Chilly Spirits
1st Place Sustainability: $500.00 Winner Chilly Spirits is solving the problem of understanding personal ecological impact for everyday consumers who want to live more sustainably. Our solution is a Sustainability Website.

Construction Winner: VibeStack
1st Place Construction: $500.00 Winner was VibeStack, a solution called Vektur which is a platform/app that supports construction site managers in identifying conflicts in site plans reducing reworks, delays and coordination mistakes with subcontractors.

Fall 2025 Winners

Winner in the Wildcard + Overall Category

Team Name: Helping Hand
Helping Hand is addressing language deprivation and the lack of accessible, interactive ASL learning for K–12 children. Their solution is a robotic arm that teaches ASL language through real-time demonstration and AI vision feedback.

Vaibhavi Naik
Edgar Sandoval
Elias Farzad
Olei Amelie Ngan
Salma Waleed Aboukhadra

Winner in the Productivity Category

Team Name: Nexa AI
NEXA AI is a productivity tool built to act as a bridge between humans and their computers.

Anson Caleb Washeck
Rishi Sharma

Winner in the Healthcare Category

Team Name: FitBud
FitBud is solving the problem of poor workout form and limited progress tracking for everyone from beginners to competitive athletes and trainers.

Nerwin James Jimenez
Omar Sadat
Collins Nyamu
Derrick Lyerly
Ryan Peterson

Winner in the Sustainability Category

Team Name: Stingray
StingRay is solving the problem of waste and financial strain caused by single-use textbooks and materials on Sac State students. Their solution is Hand It Down, a student-led materials donation website that encourages reuse, affordability, and sustainability across campus.