Hackathon questions and issues

Applications
1

Use this forum topic to ask questions or bring up any issues you have with the hackathon.

36

When will the leaderboard get updated?

37

Hi @Mohit5143 ,

The leaderboard is updated now, and includes your latest leading entry.

The process of updating the leaderboard is not yet fully automated, so the human review means new submissions will not appear for 1 or 2 days. This will get smoother with improvements being made based on learnings from reviewing the first few submissions.

Leaderboard link:

Thanks,
-Matt

38

Hi Russ and Cameron, quick question about the browser lab VM: does it have outbound internet access (like cloning repos from GitHub), or is egress blocked so we should plan to paste files in through the terminal?

39

Hi Hozaifa, No, the ODT machines do not permit either inbound or outbound traffic to the internet, so you will need to copy the design parameters manually to the submission form.

Regards, Russ

41

The form asks for design parameters, so I want to confirm scope. Is an entry just the player.py parameters, or can changes to the surrounding flow scripts count too?

42

Hi Russ,

Two questions.

  1. How many times can we update our submission to the hackathon? Can we submit just once? Can we submit multiple times if we get better results from before?
  2. I know we have 30days access to the ODT machines. But is it okay if we don’t submit our results within these 30 days and do it after?

Thanks,
ABMS

43

Hi, I have a question about my submission.

I uploaded a submission earlier and later uploaded an updated version. However, the leaderboard has not been updated yet, so I’m not sure whether my latest submission was successfully received.

Could you please help me confirm whether my latest submission was uploaded successfully and will be used for evaluation?

Thank you!

44

Hi Hozaifa,

Yes, your entry will just be the parameters in players.py, and changes to the surrounding flow script are not accepted. It is difficult to get things in/out of the On-Demand Training machines used for the Hackathon (no cut and paste), so we only allow limited customizations that can be entered in a form. Sorry for some slowness in the response – did not notice this in the queue until today.

Thanks,
-Matt

45

Hi ABMS, Welcome to HLS academy.

  1. this year we are allowing participants to make multiple entries, so there is no limit to the number of submissions you make. We will only record your best score.

  2. There is a 30-day limit in the official rules. So, we will not accept any entries older than 30 days after your first entry. Your VM used in the competition will expire after 30 days. Enjoy the contest,

-Russ

47

Hi @Ruan_Hao,

Welcome to HLS academy, and I’m glad to see you have made multiple submissions as you find a more efficient design.

We have received your latest submission @ 28nJ and it will appear on the leaderboard tomorrow, likely in first place, if another submission today does not surpass it.

Since the leaderboard update has some manual intervention, we’ve decided to commit to updating the leaderboard on Mondays and Thursdays. We may update it more often, but these will be the guaranteed update times.

Thanks,
-Matt

48

Hello. I am trying to create my virtual machine but it is taking too long and sometimes it gives me an error telling me to refresh and try again.
I noticed in previous tries that this happens when I use too much hard disk space.
Can you please help me solve this. Thank you

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49

Hi, we would like to participate in the 2026 Roadside Recognition Using HLS Hackathon as a team of two. How to add my team mate? I didn’t see any option while registering for the hackathon.

50

Hi @Xynorax, welcome to HLS Academy!

Sorry to hear you are having trouble connecting. In general, it is expected the ‘Starting’ phase should take under 10 minutes. Normally it should appear ready to launch by then, or will send an email to indicate it is ready if it takes longer than 10 minutes.

After that point, clicking the “HTML5 Version” button does indeed error sometimes, but with 2-3 tries it should launch the Virtual Machine window successfully. But, it sounds like you are experiencing a timeout before reaching the point where the launch button is available?

I will ask around about what could cause long timeouts waiting for a Virtual Machine.

51

Hi @Hagrid, welcome to HLS Academy!

If you want to each have your own Virtual Machine to experiment with, then register separately, and exchange information as needed to work on the problem together. There are only a small set of numbers that define the accelerator hardware design, so it is easy to share experiments across VMs.

When you submit a solution, provide the team name and the “primary” team member’s email address. We are now sending an email after receipt of a first submission from any new contestant, to allow you to provide any additional information like a team member’s email address.

52

Hi Matt,

I have been facing some issues with Catapult license for a while.

Whenever I try to run it, (using the pythone script as it is), I am getting-

Error: Install a more recent Catapult release.

Error: Catapult Beta Release has expired.

Can you help me with this issue?

thanks,
ABMS

53

Hi @abms ,

Unfortunately, a Catapult Beta release expires after 6 months. We deployed a beta release to include an essential required fix for the Hackathon, but it has now expired as of today.

We will have to update the Virtual Machine image to include the newer production release of Catapult. This will take about a day to complete. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Thanks,
-Matt

54

Hi Matt,

I made a submission about 4 days ago and it is yet be updated on the leaderboard, when will the next update be?

Thank you.

55

Hi @Mat-thias ,

The next update will be done later today. In general, they happen later in the day on Mondays and Thursdays.

Great to see you have made multiple submissions, and are finding efficiency improvements! Keep on going, as you’ll find the competition on the leaderboard is really heating up.

Thanks,
-Matt