CruzHacks 2026, UC Santa Cruz’s premier annual hackathon, brought together more than 300 students across 90 teams to engineer solutions with positive social impact. Notably, Baskin School of Engineering students contributed to three of the four main track–winning teams.
CruzHacks offers students the opportunity to turn theory into real-world solutions through hands-on, experiential learning. Over 36 hours, participants design, build, and present original technology “hacks” for prizes equivalent to $500. This year, projects were submitted in one of four categories: sustainability, education, justice, or health.
“We’re emphasizing using technology for social good and building projects that matter to the people around us,” said Rohit Mamidipaka (B.S., computer science, ‘27), a Baskin Engineering student and president of CruzHacks. “A lot of inspiration for the project categories comes from UCSC itself— for example, sustainability and conservation are important here, so we want projects grounded in our environment. We have all this technology, but what good is it if we can’t keep ourselves and our communities healthy?”
Projects were evaluated by judges from academia and industry—many of them UC Santa Cruz alumni working in Silicon Valley—and scored on technical complexity, user experience, functionality, originality, and real-world impact.
Students also had opportunities to network with and learn from industry sponsors such as Joby Aviation, NordVPN, and Viam.
“CruzHacks is about building community while creating an exciting competition environment,” Mamidipaka said. “People look forward to it because they can win prizes, build their resumes, meet sponsors, and work on meaningful projects. It’s professional development with a side of community and excitement.”
Over 65% of participants were Baskin Engineering students, with other schools represented, including University of California campuses at Berkeley, Davis, Irvine, Riverside and Santa Barbara, as well as Santa Clara University, San José State University, the Georgia Institute of Technology, and more.
Congratulations to the 2026 CruzHacks main track winners below, who are all UC Santa Cruz students.
Sustainability
Flood Risk Analysis: an AI-powered platform that makes flood risk assessment more accessible, helping communities make safer and more sustainable building and living decisions. The platform analyzes satellite imagery, historical rainfall, and elevation data to identify areas at higher risk of flooding, while classifying land use such as buildings, water, vegetation, and crops. Users can access the platform through a web portal to upload imagery and receive flood risk assessments or through an application programming interface for integration with other tools, providing individuals and organizations with actionable insights for planning and safety.
Daniel Rhee (B.S., computer science, ‘28), David Olguin (B.S., computer science, ‘28)
Education
Tide Party: an interactive mobile app that turns tide pooling into a fun, educational experience. The app helps users identify and learn about marine organisms in real time, and gain a deeper understanding of ocean conservation. To do this, the team trained a custom machine learning model to classify common Santa Cruz tide pool species with 94% accuracy.
Oleg Mrynskyi (B.S., computer science, ‘26), Anthony Lamas (B.S., computer science, ‘26)
Justice
U.S. Eco Glass: a website designed to make the U.S. legislative process more accessible to the public. Focusing on environmental policy, it helps users track legislation being considered or enacted by the U.S.House and Senate. The platform aims to keep citizens informed and engaged, providing transparency on policies that directly affect communities and the environment.
Gaurav Gupta (B.S., computer engineering, ‘27), Ethan Kuhlken (B.S., cognitive science, ‘27), Eric Olaru-Hagen (B.S., cognitive science, ‘27)
“These main track winners really stood out—the technical depth these projects have is incredible,” Mamidipaka said. “Most CruzHacks projects are fully usable, and many teams have plans to take their work further and scale them in the real world.”
Visit DevPost to explore all of this year’s projects.
CruzHacks was hosted by the UCSC Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurial Development and sponsored by Baskin Engineering, the UC Santa Cruz Generative AI Center, QB3, the Division of Student Affairs and Success, CITRIS, the UC Santa Cruz Genomics Institute, the 10 UCSC Colleges, the Center for Research in Open Source Software, UCSC Startup Club, Joby Aviation, Opennote, Viam, IF MAGIC, n8n, Unwrap, South Swell Ventures, NordProtect, NordVPN, NordPass, Framer, Saily, Incogni, Nexos.ai, PCBWay, Robotis, Autodesk, CodePath, Mobbin, Vercel, Balsamiq, Santa Cruz Economic Development and Housing, OpenMV, Ike’s, 1Password, Espressif, Machinations, Interview Cake, Downtown Santa Cruz, and Santa Cruz Works.
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