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Association of Energy Engineers Student Chapter at Arizona State University®

Competition

ASU Energy Hackathon

Twenty-four hours, four tracks, and real challenge statements from people working in the industry. Students from any major build something that works, then defend it to judges on Sunday morning. We ran the first one in April 2026 with the IEEE student branch at ASU.

Participants, organizers and judges of the 2026 ASU Energy Hackathon standing together at the front of the lecture hall after the awards.

01/The 2026 event

How it ran

When
18–19 April 2026, from 10:00 AM Saturday
Where
EDC 117, ASU Tempe campus
Participants
123
Format
24 hours, prototype-first, overnight room closure
Teams
Two to four people
Tracks
Four, with six industry challenge statements
Prizes
$4,000+ across five challenges
Run with
The IEEE student branch at ASU
Food
Lunch Saturday, brunch during judging Sunday

02/Tracks

Four ways in

Teams pick a track and work against a challenge statement written by someone who deals with that problem for a living. You don’t need to show up with a team or an idea.

  • AI for Energy

    Challenges from APS and Collide.io

    Forecasting, optimization and decision support. Anywhere a model can do something a spreadsheet can't.

    • APS: build an AI solution for predictive and spatially aware grid applications.
    • Collide.io: AI-driven solutions for energy systems, using machine learning and forecasting.

  • Software for Energy

    Sponsored by OpenVPP

    Tools for the people who run energy systems: monitoring, dispatch, markets, reporting.

    • OpenVPP: design intelligent orchestration for electric vehicles as flexible grid assets.

  • Hardware for Energy

    Partner club: IEEE

    Something you can put on a table. Sensing, power electronics, storage, a rig that runs.

    • Battery Lie Detector: measure the true usable capacity and state of health of a lithium-ion cell, rather than trusting the label.
    • Energy Debt Tracker: a solar-powered ESP32 system tracking energy harvested against energy consumed, adapting across surplus, balanced and deficit states.

  • Energy Efficiency

    Sponsored by BKPK

    Buildings and industry: auditing, retrofits, controls, and the boring savings that add up.

    • BKPK: design a high-efficiency bidirectional DC-DC converter connecting a high-voltage battery system to an 800 V DC data center bus.
A team demonstrating their prototype on a laptop during the hackathon.
Awards being presented at the front of the room at the end of the hackathon.

More from the weekend is in the gallery, and the 2026 submissions are on Devpost ↗.

03/The 2026 event

How it was judged, and who backed it

Twelve judges, from utilities, energy startups, venture funds and ASU labs, working to five published criteria. Everything here is a record of the 2026 hackathon rather than a standing arrangement.

Judged on

  • Technical execution
  • Problem relevance
  • Quality of prototype
  • Interdisciplinary integration
  • Energy sector insight

Sponsors

  • OpenVPP
  • BKPK
  • Collide.io
  • Lovable
  • SRP
  • eSeed Challenge, powered by the Prescott Student Venture Fund

Prizes, challenge statements, mentors and food. Run with the IEEE student branch. If you want to be on this list next time, the partner page says how.

04/The next one

How to be part of it

If you study here

Dates for the next hackathon go on the events page and into the chapter Discord first. Any major, any year — the strongest teams in 2026 were the mixed ones.

If you work in the industry

Set a challenge statement, judge, mentor for an evening, or back the prize fund. Partner with us sets out what that looks like, or write to aeeasustudentchapter@gmail.com.

Join

You don’t need an energy background. Just be interested.

Undergrad, master’s, PhD, any major — engineering, sustainability, business, computing, science, policy. Show up to one thing and see if it’s for you.

Join AEE at ASU