1. Around 150 teams, of typically four folks, start on Friday afternoon (February 26th) at 3:00 PM.
2. These teams optimally consist of one - four people, some combination of developers and UX/designers. At our hackathon we don’t let in “business people” -- we only allow verified developers (by checking their code) and verified UX/designers.
3. Why no business people? Because they have nothing to do at these events and wind up bothering folks. If you’re a business person, the “startup weekend” competitions are really the best for you.  
4. The goal of our hackathon is for the teams to build something cool in 48 hours.
5. On Sunday February 28th folks finish their code at 2:30 PM and we do four hours of judging.
6. Judging consists of two people (typically one product/design and one technical) hearing the pitch from the team leader, asking questions and taking notes. These visits take 10 minutes and judges will review a dozen teams.
7. The top 20 projects get to present on stage for two minutes each, take one-two question, and move on. We’ll get the judging done in about 90 minutes.
8. The top five projects are determined by the final judges (including Jason Calacanis). They get to go on the main stage at the LAUNCH Festival on March 4th in front of thousands of folks!
9. Will award 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place, as well as a bunch of prizes from our partners.
10. We will offer a slot to the top four projects into the LAUNCH Incubator, which comes with a $250K investment. This is not a cash prize, the investment is pending due diligence from the LAUNCH team.
11. If folks don’t take the investment I will meet with other teams who want to do a startup or join the incubator. There is no cash prize -- only an investment in a corporate entity that you would start after the event.
12. There is no alcohol at the event, and it goes without saying that anyone doing drugs at the event will be quickly escorted out. This is a professional event, not a party!
13. There will be food the entire time.
14. We will be open 24 hours per day, but there are no “in-n-outs” between 12:00am and 6:00am
15. It might get chilly since we’re on a pier.
16. You can go home and come back.
17. You cannot bring guests--sorry!  
18. There will be no press.
19. If you make a product for developers, or you are there trying to hire folks, you cannot come as a team and use participation in the hackathon as a way to circumvent the sponsorships we desperately need to run the event. I know, I know, it sounds crazy that someone would do this -- but they have! And we kicked them out!
20. We may, at our discretion, audit the code of the top 20 projects to ensure their work was done during the Hackathon. Teams may use open source code and public APIs, but we ask that teams not write any code or do any designs before the Hackathon starts (Wireframes and UX are OK).