October 16 to 18, USC, LA Tech Week 2026. 200+ student builders report for 48 hours.
Friday night, one problem statement drops. Classified until that moment.
No categories announced in advance, because there aren't five neat little tracks waiting for you, it's one live, evolving, dual-use problem, and it mutates into a new sub-problem every 8 hours after that. The best squads don't pick a lane, they find the solution that solves it twice: locally and globally.
You will not be a stranger by Friday night. We open with a live icebreaker built to sort strangers into squads on the spot, matched for skill and drive, not who already knew each other. Bring a pre-formed team of 3 or more and we seat you together. Come alone and you leave the icebreaker with one.
Every squad gets three mentors: one dedicated to you all weekend, plus two rotating specialists, one technical, one community, matched before doors even open. Sponsor engineers hold office hours at your table mid-build, and again on the exhibition floor. No squad walks out without a mentor and a judge telling them exactly what they built.
Zero experience required to walk in Friday.
Builder Brief can be found
here.
500+ students showed up to our last build weekend, and 20 speakers showed up just for them.
Last cycle's winning squad walked in as total strangers and walked out with
$20,000 and a deployment at the LA Coliseum ahead of LA28. Two months later, they were funded and fielded. Winners here get a shot at Innovate LA's Startup Incubator Program and a separate final prize, plus introductions for interviews at sponsor companies. More on the outfit at
innovatelosangeles.comMeals and coffee run all weekend, so no team stops to plan a food run. Compute credits land per squad at kickoff. And Saturday at 21:30, the Midnight Games hit: coffee, poker, chess, Jenga, each with its own award, built as the reset between two build days.
This form gets you on the roster. It's short. Fill it out.
