Engineering Design Days: Engaging Students with Authentic Problem-Solving in an Academic Hackathon

This paper describes the evidence-based use of a hackathon model to address student learning outcomes in first-year Engineering programs. There is a growing body of work around the use of hackathons to promote engagement, innovation, teamwork, and problem-solving in engineers before, during, and after their undergraduate studies. Existing hackathons tend to be open, extracurricular events with a focus on software and UX/UI design. While some have a theme to steer students towards a particular problem space, there is an absence of literature regarding the use of hackathons in-class to support course-level learning objectives.