CHAOS

CHAOS is an 8-hour on-site hackathon hosted by the IEEE Student Branch. Teams of 2 to 4 students build a working software solution from scratch against a real-world problem, judged live at the end of the day — no recorded demos, no slide-only submissions. Problem statements are revealed only on the day itself, so no team walks in pre-prepared. Every team starts from zero and builds the entire product within the same eight hours. What sets CHAOS apart is its Buffs & Debuffs wheel. Four times throughout the day, a spin on the main screen hands the entire hall either a helpful perk or a fun, bothersome restriction (voice-only coding, no Enter key, whisper-mode communication) for the next thirty minutes. Every team faces the same twist at the same time, keeping the day unpredictable without affecting anyone's score. Backed by industry sponsors including Cursor, CHAOS gives students a full problem-to-demo cycle in a single day, under the same pressure and unpredictability.