Competitions and Hack-a-Thons
All year: Look for hack-a-thons at Major League Hacking and DevPost.
February : The ICPC Mid-Atlantic Regional Contest. The International Collegiate Programming Contest is an annual event.
Shep Robo Fest: For many years each April, Shepherd University hosted its annual all-day-Saturday competition where teams from many schools compete to field automata capable of navigating mazes, sumo wrestling, and more. See the old Shep Robo Fest page. Are you interested in reviving this tradition? Speak to a faculty member.
April: Bit.Camp is a huge, general purpose hack-a-thon at the basketball stadium at University of Maryland in College Park.
June: NASA Gateways to Blue Skies. Papers due in March. Conference in Virginia in June.
September/October: SciFest – free for K-12 and college students who register in advance. The annual festival is online this year — normally it alternates years between San Francisco and Washington DC. It features hundreds of presentations by people from hundreds of tech companies. Hosted by USA Science & Engineering Festival dot org.
October: HackMIT draws 1000 participants live but requires advance registration.
October: CCSC-Eastern Regional Conference in Pennsylvania. The Consortium for Computing Sciences in Colleges holds this annual event. See also the 2021 programming contest. Note some of the submission deadlines are in summer.
October: Technica, the huge hack-a-thon at University of Maryland in College Park MD. Also Hack UMBC, a smaller one at University of Maryland in Baltimore County.
October: Scudem, a challenge in modeling with differential equations. Ask Professor Mills about joining the Shepherd team. In 2022, the challenge lasts 21 Oct – 13 Nov.
November: CyberForce competition hosted by US Department of Energy. In 2020, this is an online competition due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
November: SCUDEM. The annual Challenge Using Differential Equations Modeling
Conferences
January and March: COPLAC has undergraduate research conferences for the USA northeast and southeast regions. COPLAC also has an undergraduate research journal called Metamorphosis.
March: The annual Mid-Atlantic Undergraduate Research Conference (MAURC) organized by VA Tech is open to students from any college. Apply by Jan 29 here. If accepted on Feb 1, submit a poster and 5-min video by Mar 8 latest. Best posters will be selected to give talks.
Saturday April 23 2022: The annual meeting of the West Virginia Academy of Science (WVAS) hosts talks and posters — by and for college students. Shepherd usually sends several vans full of students. Track Announcements.
April: The Shepherd University Exhibition of Undergraduate Research and Creative Endeavors. Departments may nominate 2 oral presentations and 2 poster presentations. Nominated students must submit a title and abstract (300 words max).
April: The State Math Field Day has not been held recently. Speak to your advisor about restarting this event. [2019 event.]
Oct 21-23 2021: WE22 – the Society of Women Engineers annual conference, this year in Houston TX. Talk to the faculty about starting a SWE chapter at Shepherd or seeking funding for a trip to the conference.
Oct 29, 2021: Aviation Education & Career Expo [poster] in Leesburg VA. Students need to be nominated by their schools so contact the CME department chair.