Bay Area teens developed health and wellness software overnight at Hack Cupertino 2026 from Saturday, April 11 to Sunday, April 12 at the Quinlan Community Center.
“It’s like a sleepover,” Jasmine Zhao, 17, Monta Vista High School student, said. “We get to choose what we work on and who we work with.”
Hack Cupertino is an annual 13-hour overnight hackathon for teens aged 13 to 18. This year, the city charged a registration fee of $5 for residents and $6 for non-residents.
Cupertino hosted its first hackathon, CUHACKS, in 2015. The city’s Youth Activity Board, Teen Commission and Recreation Department began organizing Hack Cupertino starting 2017.
Siddhi Lakkarsu, 14, Monta Vista student, said Hack Cupertino was more local and community-oriented than her prior hackathons.
“It (another hackathon) was cutthroat. People were not sharing outlets; they were not gaming or socializing,” Lakkarsu said. “Here, it’s more welcoming.”
Over 100 students attended this year, splitting into teams of up to four, to solve health and wellness challenges with technology.
Samarth Gupta, 16, Irvington High School student, said it’s a “creative theme” with an “openness” that gives teams the flexibility to address a wide range of “physical” to “mental” health issues.
The organizers let participants use AI if disclosed.
“It doesn’t feel like cheating. It feels like taking advantage of resources,” Lakkarsu said. “You have to know what steps and how to use the AI effectively.”
Plaksha Jha, 14, Monta Vista student, said she believes most teams will incorporate AI in their projects.
“We know every team can build a software using AI,” Lakkarsu said. “ It’s who does it best, … who has the most niche idea that affects the most people and creates the most impact?”
Judges scored projects based on impact, innovation, functionality, code and design.
The team Chewbacca Coders, consisting of Lakkarsu, Jha, Hruday Mulky, 15, Monta Vista student and Gia Mathew, 15, Monta Vista student, said its mascot, a stuffed Chewbacca, encouraged its members “to lock in.”
Mulky said the team’s project, MealMate, promotes “small actions” such as healthy eating and avoiding food waste that “contribute to our health in today’s society.”
Lakksarsu said she integrates various AI agents such as ChatGPT, Cursor Cloud and Roboflow into her workflow.
“We’re figuring this out as we go, … especially with AI and different parts of it like computer vision, NLP (natural language processing) and different models,” Lakkarsu said. “The most important thing is having a growth mindset and dividing it (the work) into smaller tasks we can break up.”
With only 13 hours, Jha said the time crunch motivated the team to stay focused.
“It adds to the fun,” Jha said. “The stress isn’t dragged out for a long period of time, and it allows us to be fully in the moment.”
Mentors helped participants brainstorm, code and resolve conflicts throughout the night.
Emilie Chan, 16, mentor and Monta Vista student, said participants had a wide “range of experience” with coding and hackathons; she said she attended other hackathons where there weren’t a lot of mentors.
“I wanted to be a mentor to provide students with more support,” Chan said. “They’re learning along the way. To be there to support them, I think it’s special.”
Between coding, the lobby held “Midnight Mario Kart” and “2 a.m. Table Tennis” tournaments for students to relax and socialize.
“We (my team and I) have been preparing for the table tennis tournament,” Lakkarsu said. “I’ve been locked in since I was 5 years old.”
Jha said the table tennis tournament motivated her to join Hack Cupertino and learn more about how she could participate.
“It’s a good first-time hackathon,” Jha said. “It’s an easy environment to walk into and feel like I can learn something from this, and it won’t be hard for me to fit in.”
The event also offered participants dinner, snacks and breakfast such as from Taco Bell.
Mira Ram, 17, Monta Vista student, said the food “caters to the teens in this area” such as Zhao, who said the food was “super-duper.”
Projects along with development details and code repositories are public on Devpost. As of press time, the hackathon’s Devpost page said the winners will be “announced soon.”
Hack Cupertino is a place to “socialize and also flex your coding skills,” Jha said. Lakkarsu added, “And also flex your Mario Kart and table tennis skills.”
