CS4950 Emerging Technologies Hackathon
This course offers a unique, immersive opportunity for students to apply emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, robotics and autonomous systems, networking and 5G solutions, cybersecurity, and quantum computing to challenges faced by the Department of the Navy or other Department of War agencies or activities with a focus on operational Fleet problems. Designed as an intensive, team-based experience, the course culminates in a multi-day hackathon where students collaborate on real-world problems alongside subject matter experts from both military and technical domains. Participants engage in the full lifecycle of solution development—including problem framing, design, prototyping, and development—using modern software engineering and analytics tools introduced during the quarter.
The teamwork encourages interdisciplinary collaboration, inviting students with backgrounds in software development, emerging technology areas, human-centered
design, operations, and project management. Open to any Department of Defense personnel and graduate students from across disciplines, the Emerging Technologies
Hackathon fosters innovation through experiential learning and direct mentorship from domain experts.
Prerequisite
There are no prerequisites at the individual student level--complimentary skill sets are desirable in each of the teams that will be formed. At the class level, cumulatively, at least half of the students need to have working experience with the focus area technology, programming courses or solid programming experience, and experience with software engineering tools of the trade such as coding IDEs, code version control, and, depending on the focus topic, data engineering and operations, MLOps, agile programming and DevOps practicees.
Lecture Hours
2
Lab Hours
3