What to Expect?
What to Bring?

Review these items before you arrive so you know how to prepare for the weekend.
First timer? OCD planner? We have you covered. Contact Us if you still have questions!

Project Reveal on Friday Night

What to Expect & What to Bring

freParking
Participants should use parking lot on Boonville. If you have a large amount of equipment, you may pull up to the building to unload or temporarily park in parking lot from Jefferson to unload. Refer to our Parking Map for more information.

Registration
Be prepared to sign a copy of the Competition Rules when you arrive. This is an 18+ event. You must show valid ID to receive a 21+ wristband (required for beer).

Communication
We use Discord to communicate. Each attendee should make sure you can access the #general channel in our Discord Group. We encourage you to create a private channel for your team.

Facility Access
Participants may access the eFactory anytime over the weekend (24 hours per day), BUT exterior doors must remain locked the entire weekend. Do not prop doors open! Keep your smartphone and your event badge with you at all times. Have someone wait for you at the door, or login to our Discord Group on your phone and ask someone in #general channel to open the door when you return. Attendees can open the door if you have your badge. Only an event organizer should open the door if you do not have your badge.

Food and Drinks
We provide meals throughout the weekend. Refer to our Event Schedule for meal times and type of food to expect at each meal. We will provide a variety of drinks, including milk, juice, soda, coffee, coffee drinks, energy drinks, and beer (21+ only). eFactory has water fountains designed to refill water bottles, so bring a reusable water bottle. We will provide several community coolers with ice, but we recommend you bring your own cooler if you need to keep special food or drinks cold. View our map of Nearby Coffee Shops and Nearby Restaurants if you need to get out for a while.

Work Areas
eFactory has allowed us to use their meeting rooms and conference rooms for the event. Room assignments will be available at the registration booth. View our Facility Map if you are looking for a specific room. Maps with team assignments will also be posted during the event.

Computers and Electronics
Computers are NOT provided. Bring your own laptop or desktop, external monitors, keyboard, trackpad, mouse, wired or wireless headphones or earbuds, USB hub, USB drives, HDMI adapter, Ethernet adapter (in case of wifi outage), power cables. If you are not working overnight, we encourage you to take any valuable computers or electronics home with you. If you leave items overnight, you do so at your own risk and Hack 4 Good Springfield accepts no responsibility for any possessions left unattended at the venue.

Music and Speakers
We will be playing background music and announcements through the building’s audio system all weekend. If you prefer your own music or podcasts, please use headphones or earbuds. Do not bring speakers.

Electronics
Bring chargers and adapters for your phone, tablet, laptop!

Electricity
eFactory provides multiple outlets near your work area. Bring a power strip (6-foot or longer), especially if you have multiple devices (laptop or computer, monitor(s), phone chargers, etc.

Internet Connectivity
eFactory provides fast and reliable wireless network in all rooms. They also provide network ports in certain rooms. If you MUST plugin to the network, bring a network cable and notify us at registration so we can assign you to a room with an available network port. Be aware that you can NOT connect a network switch with multiple devices to a network port! The MSU network will automatically detect your switch and disable the port for security purposes.

Presentation – Content
Each team will have 6-8 minutes to demo their project to a panel of judges during Sunday lunch. Talk about each feature you partially or completely implemented, spending more time on the features or items ranked most important. Talk about the software you are using for the frontend and the backend. Past teams have walked through a slideshow of web/mobile screenshots, a prepared video of their web/mobile app, or a live demo of their web/mobile app in an iOS/Android emulator or by mirroring an iOS or Android device to their laptop (see Screen Mirroring below).

Presentation – Audio/Visual Requirements
eFactory “Cox Innovation” room provides a very large drop-down screen and a wide-screen projector with HDMI video/audio input. Someone on your team MUST have a laptop with an HDMI audio/video output port or adapter that your team can use for the app demo on Sunday. Be sure to test your HDMI connection on Saturday in case you need help from a mentor, or need to borrow an adapter from someone.

Presentation – Screen Mirroring
If you plan to demo your mobile app from a phone or tablet (instead of a software emulator), you must use screen mirroring to your laptop. Be sure to test screen mirroring on Saturday in case you need help from a mentor! Here are specific tips:

  • Do NOT attempt to connect the phone or tablet directly to the projector. Besides the fact that this almost never works (and has wasted a lot of demo time in past years), we plan to record the demos and mirroring your laptop will ensure we capture your entire presentation.
  • When mirroring your device screen, we recommend using QuickTime for iOS or Vysor for Android.
  • Mirror over a data cable. Mirroring over the wireless network does not usually work.
  • Other mirroring options for iOS include LonelyScreen, Reflector, AirServer, and X-Serve. Other mirroring options for Android include AirDroid, Mobizen, AllCast Chrome Extension, and TeamViewer.

Hosting
We do not provide hosting, but we can suggest a few free or inexpensive options for the weekend. You may need a credit card to signup for these options. Talk to a Hack 4 Good mentor if you need hosting-related help or advice!

  • Canvas offers a free tier of their Learning Management System (LMS).
  • Major cloud providers offer up to one year of free hosting under their Free Tier: AWS Free Tier | Microsoft Free Tier | Google Free Tier
  • Heroku offers a low cost account that allows you to “Create apps, connect databases and add-on services, and collaborate on your apps”

Source Code
You must publish a copy of your project source code to a public Git repository (e.g. GitHub) and share the link to the #general channel on Slack before your Project Demo on Sunday so participants can view your source code during the demo. Talk to a mentor if you need Git-related help or advice!