HackStorm 2.0 | All participants need to know

Hi there,

​Congratulations — you're officially approved for HackStorm 2.0. We can't wait to meet you.

📅 6PM May 22

📍 JJ Lake Business Center, Mountain View

🛠️ Pre-Event Online Workshop - Wednesday, May 20 7PM

We'll show you how to build AIoT apps and Robotics Arm apps through vibe coding — even if you've never touched embedded development before. We will post the link later. https://us05web.zoom.us/j/8561672845?pwd=jo02foBunSNocM4zC6VFSvvUQbhp2E.1&omn=84503602150

Meeting ID: 856 167 2845

Passcode: 123456

​🎁 Free ESP32 Dev Board

Post live photos and videos about HackStorm at LinkedIn or X and show the post to us, then you will be gifted with an ESP32 Dev Board.

​🎤 Open Mic on Friday Night

We're hosting an open mic on the evening of May 22. Come ready to share what you want to build and the teammates you're looking for — it's the fastest way to find your crew. Even a rough idea is welcome.

​💬 Join the Discord

This is our private channel for the event — workshop link, announcements, team-finding, and mentor Q&A all in one place. https://discord.gg/GgE9Qhsmu9

​💡 50 Physical AI Project Ideas — Shippable in 48 Hours

https://www.hackstorm.ai/post/50-physical-ai-project-ideas

​👯 Bring your team

You're welcome to team up with friends — just make sure they also register and get approved.

Team Formation

Please join our Discord channel and post a team matching message at team matching channel if you need. If you want to switch track, please reach out to team@hackstorm.ai.

Open to Either Track

All approved participants who selected open to either automatically assigned to AIoT Track because registrations for the Robotics Track have exceeded capacity, and we only have 12 AgileX Piper robotic arms available.

AIoT Track

Minimum team size is 2. We strongly discourage solo participation — resources are limited and the workload for a complete project is more than one person can comfortably handle in a weekend.

If you still want to go solo, please reach out to team@hackstorm.ai to schedule a quick chat with our founder, Zhen.

Each team will receive a loaner Tuya dev board (either the T5 E1 or T5AI). Teams that complete their final pitch on Sunday get to keep the board. Teams that don't finish must return it to HackStorm.

Robotics Track

Registrations for the Robotics Track have exceeded capacity, and we only have 12 AgileX Piper robotic arms available. To allocate them fairly, we're introducing the following rules:

Minimum team size is 3. All prospective team leads must pitch their idea at the Open Mic session — you're welcome to pitch whether or not you've already formed a team.

The HackStorm team and judges will select 12 team leads from the pitches. All remaining participants will talk to team leads and join one of the approved teams. Team leads decide whether to accept a member. We are trying our best to make sure all participants join into favored team.

Arsenal

AIoT Track	Pick one of followings per team: Tuya T5AI Board (with Camera) [Very Limited] Waveshare Tuya T5 E1 Dev Board (with GPS module)
Robotics Track	https://global.agilex.ai/products/piper

​📅 Timeline

May 20th Wednesday	7:00 PM	Online Workshop
May 22nd Friday	6:00 PM	Check-in & badge pickup
	7:00 PM	Event introduction
	7:30 PM	Welcome, sponsor intros, hardware overview
	8:00 PM	Open Mic
	9:00 PM	Self-introduction
	9: 30 PM	Team Registration and Gear Pickup
	10:00 PM	Start to hack
Saturday		Full-day Development
Sunday	3: 00 PM	Deadline of submission
	3:15 PM	Start to pitch
	6:00 PM	Prizes announcement

Submission

A slide deck	Introduction of your project (For the 6-min pitch)
A video	2-minute demonstration video
Git repo	A link to your github repo

All teams need to create a folder here and name the folder with your team name: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1DZbp38otNZr1CBmr0KBOqhU-aelxnvNz?usp=share_link Then please submit all materials to your folder.

Judges

Lujie Yang	Applied Scientist at Amazon Frontier AI & Robotics (FAR), MIT EECS PHD https://www.linkedin.com/in/lujie-yang/
Peide Huang	Researcher at Google DeepMind, CMU Mechanical Engineering PHD https://www.linkedin.com/in/peidehuang/
Sze Yuan Cheong	Co-Founder & CEO @ Devol Robots | Building the Inevitable Future of Physical AI https://www.linkedin.com/in/sze-yuan-cheong-b981a567/
Dhruv Diddi	Specialized Physical AI | Solo Tech Founder | UFB Champion | IEEE Humanoids | Formerly at Google, Turo, YouTube https://www.linkedin.com/in/dhruvdiddi/
Komal Shrivastava	Electrical Engineer, lead at Voltai, working on developing cutting edge AI tools for Hardware design https://www.linkedin.com/in/komal-shrivastava-ee/
Tuya Representative
AgileX Representative

Judging Criteria

Dimension	Weight	What Judges Look For
Technical Execution	30%	Does the project actually run? Are the hardware, AI/ML, and software components fully integrated? Can the team demo a complete end-to-end flow live on stage?
Innovation & Wow Factor	25%	Is the idea novel and distinctive? Does the project make judges' eyes light up?
Potential Impact	20%	Market potential, importance of the problem solved, broader applications beyond the demo.
Pitch & Demo	15%	Clarity of the 3-minute pitch; quality and stability of the live demo.
3D Printing & Physical Design	10%	Are printed parts functional rather than decorative? Is the hardware craftsmanship solid? Does the physical form integrate sensibly with the software?
Total	100%

🎁 Prizes & Gifts

Prize	Count	Details
1st Prize @ AIoT Track	1	$1200 cash
2st Prize @ AIoT Track	1	$1000 cash
3st Prize @ AIoT Track	1	$800 cash
1st Prize @ Robotics Track	1	$1200 cash
2st Prize @ Robotics Track	1	$1000 cash
3st Prize @ Robotics Track	1	$800 cash
Best Use of Bambu Printing	1	P2S Combo
Best Use of Bambu Printing	1	P1S Combo
Most Valuable Peers	6	Granted to participants or volunteers who you think helps you or your team a lot. Send the story to team@hackstorm.ai and I will evaluate.
Social Media Post Gift	200	Tuya Core Board or ESP32 Board
Lovable credits
Qwen credits

🎁 Benefits

Lovable Credits

Tech documents

For AIoT track, we strongly suggest you to watch this video to get familar with Tuya Platform.

Introduction of Tuya Platform:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQ7hDAvBsG4

Demo show:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2aK2uOJ8bhQ​

❓ Questions? Feel free to schedule 15 min with our founder: https://calendly.com/zhennian/15min

​Regards,

Team HackStorm