AI Hackathon and Showcase

Nov. 15-Nov. 16, 2025 | Lafferre Hall

Purpose

Inspired by the global ARC Prize competition, founded by Mizzou Engineering alum Mike Knoop, the AI Hackathon & Showcase brings together students, faculty and industry partners to take on the exciting challenges of abstraction and reasoning in artificial intelligence. Designed as a bridge between classroom learning, research and community engagement, the event gives students across the College of Engineering, and the broader campus community, a chance to apply AI fundamentals to a cutting-edge problem in a collaborative, creative environment.

Sponsored by the College of Engineering and supported by the College of Engineering Graduate Student Association, the EECS GSA and the ARC Prize Foundation, the hackathon and showcase is open to all and promises an engaging experience at the intersection of innovation, teamwork and discovery.

Event Details

Focus

ARC-AGI-2 benchmark (2025 competition dataset). This event will emphasize exploration, creativity and learning, not outperforming state-of-the-art. It is designed to be fun, collaborative and involve open-ended exploration of AI reasoning tasks.

Timeline

• 5 p.m., Friday, Oct. 10
  • Individual registration deadline
    • Participants must register themselves by this date to be eligible for team formation
• September-early November
  • Pre-event exploration
    • Review ARC tasks, explore solvers and brainstorm approaches
• 3-5 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 22 in Ketcham Auditorium
  • Mizzou ARC Prize 2025 Workshop, “Learn, share and spark ideas for ARC Prize 2025”
    • A two-hour workshop for students to learn from peers, hear insights from guests and faculty, exchange ideas, connect with others and discuss potential team formation for AGI Hackathon
• 10-11 a.m. Saturday, Nov. 15
  • Team Registration
    • Teams (2-5 members) will form from individuals who registered by the Oct. 10 deadline. Finalized team lists will be submitted at check-in.
• Saturday, Nov. 15-Sunday, Nov. 16
  • Hackathon and Showcase weekend
    • teams present their work, share experiences and celebrate creativity in a festival-style event.

Compute

College of Engineering will help provide High Performance Computing (HPC) to provide equitable access to teams. Details coming soon. 

Mentorship

Faculty and graduate student mentors will be available during the event

Sponsorship and Prizes

Cash prizes

• First place: $2,000
• Second place: $1,000
• Third place: $500

Additional door prizes

Food and Logistics

Breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks will be provided

Participation and Registration

Open to all MU students (College of Engineering and beyond).

Register by 5 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 10. Required information includes name, student email address, college and department.

Schedule