Software Engineering Competition
Build a lightweight emergency relief system that intelligently matches urgent shelter requests with available essential supplies, helping coordinators allocate resources quickly and efficiently.
Point of Contact
Two-Phase Competition
This competition consists of two phases: advanced preparation and a 2-hour onsite challenge. Participants must complete the preparation phase beforehand, then demonstrate and further develop their entry during the onsite session according to the provided guidelines.
Competition Overview
Emergency Relief Operations & Dispatch System
This competition is designed in two distinct phases to mirror real-world software engineering workflows: foundational development before the competition followed by high-pressure, rapid feature integration and adaptation on the competition day.
Teams will develop a software solution for a real-world humanitarian logistics challenge, then adapt their system to new requirements and data during a live coding challenge.
Challenge Title
Emergency Relief Operations & Dispatch System
Target Audience
High School Students
Grades 11–12
Phase 01 / Before Competition Day
Pre-Competition Preparation
Teams develop the core system and establish the foundation needed for the live competition.
Core Development
Core system, database, priority allocation, REST API, and GUI.
Phase 02 / Competition Day
Live Hackathon
Teams adapt their existing system by implementing newly introduced features and working with an updated dataset.
Rapid feature integration and adaptation
Team & Submission
Maximum 3 students per team
GitHub repository or ZIP source code, plus a live demo pitch
Competition Rules
Challenge Requirements
During natural disasters or local emergencies, volunteer coordinators need to quickly match essential supplies such as water, food, and first aid kits with urgent requests from shelter sites. Teams must develop a lightweight web application or desktop software that processes inventory and request data, allocates supplies according to urgency, and provides a clear operational status dashboard.
Phase 1: Foundational Development
Once teams receive the problem statement, they must architect and deliver a fully functional baseline system containing the following core modules:
Data Models
Design schemas for Inventory (item, quantity, warehouse ID), Requests (request ID, shelter ID, item, quantity, urgency), and Shelters (shelter ID, name, priority, location coordinates).
Priority Allocation Engine
Implement automated matching based on the urgency hierarchy: Critical > High > Moderate.
Inventory Tracking
Dynamically update warehouse stock as supplies are allocated, preventing negative stock and handling insufficient-stock errors.
User Interface
Create a GUI or web portal for manually entering requests, inspecting current inventory, and viewing processed allocation logs.
Export & Reporting
Generate dynamic summary reports in JSON, CSV, or downloadable PDF format showing fulfilled and unfulfilled shelter requests.
Automated Testing
Build basic unit tests to verify allocation logic and edge cases, including prevention of negative stock.
Submit the 3-minute video presentation/demo and GitHub link for the pre-prepared code by email to hkscad@rit.edu by Sunday, November 1, 2026.
Phase 2: Rapid Integration & Operational Surprises
Teams will receive surprise requirements and new dataset formats on competition day. They must integrate these extensions into their Phase 1 codebase and ensure the complete system is functioning as expected.
All Phase 2 submissions, including the competition-day implementation, integration work, and required 3-minute video presentation/demo, must be completed within the 2-hour hackathon.
What Teams Must Submit
ZIP file containing clean source code for the complete system, an installation README.md, and a link to the GitHub repository.
3-minute presentation/demo covering the features implemented before the competition and the technologies used.
3-minute presentation/demo covering the competition-day features, integration process, and potential improvements.
Permitted Tools & AI Policy
Python, JavaScript/Node.js, HTML/CSS/JS (Vanilla or React), Tkinter, Flask, or Pandas.
Generative AI tools such as ChatGPT and Copilot may be used only for code debugging and syntax lookup. Generating complete codebase solutions using AI is strictly prohibited.
Evaluation
Judges will evaluate each team across both phases of the competition, considering the technical quality of the foundational system, the team's ability to adapt under time pressure, and the quality of the final working solution.
Technical Correctness & Robustness
Correct data parsing, accurate supply deduction, strict execution of priority rules, and zero crashes on edge cases. All Phase 2 added features deliver expected outcomes.
Architecture & Adaptability
Modular codebase design and how easily the team integrated Phase 2 surprise features into their Phase 1 base architecture within the 2-hour competition.
Innovation & User Experience
Thoughtful design choices, visual status enhancements, interactive filter features, or UI polish beyond the base specifications.
Quality of Final Result
Overall application reliability, completeness, speed, accuracy, and operational usability.
Presentation & Demonstration
Clear 3-minute demonstration covering both pre-built and newly integrated live features, followed by judge Q&A.
Teamwork & Professionalism
Effective role division during the 2-hour rush, structured commit history, clean README, respectful conduct, and disciplined time management.