02 / ORIGIN
Why wemade this.
At every hackathon we went to this year, we kept seeing the same project: another AI tool designed to make people faster and essentially more productive.
The projects weren't necessarily bad. The strange part was how identical they all felt. Hackathons have become obsessed with proving that an idea is good.
So Ethan, Jonathan, and Angela— two Brown students and one CMU student —created the AI Slopathon.
Your challenge
Build the stupidest
thing you can with AI.
We welcome AI slop, as long as it's satirical, whimsical, surprising, or genuinely funny. No need to solve a serious problem. No need to justify the market size. Just make something that probably shouldn't exist.
The best part? We're giving away $100 as the grand prize, plus other ridiculous prizes.
We're betting that when people stop trying so hard to be useful, they create something far more interesting.
03 / THE THEME
What should I build?
Build whatnobody asked for.
The AI Slopathon celebrates projects that are weird, absurd, unnecessary, and impossible to forget.
Most hackathons ask participants to solve the world's biggest problems. We're asking you to solve problems that don't exist.
Forget productivity tools, note-taking apps, and the next billion-dollar startup idea. Build something unexpected. Build something ridiculous. Build something that makes people laugh and wonder why anyone would spend time creating it.
The best projects make people say
“There's no way someone
actually built this.”
Take an outrageous idea and bring it to life with surprising creativity and attention to detail.
What counts?
Almost anything — as long as it captures the spirit of the Slopathon.
The Slop Test™
Before you submit, ask yourself
- Would somebody send this to a group chat?
- Would this confuse an investor?
- Did I build this simply because it would be funny?
- Did I make the internet a slightly stranger place?
- Would somebody immediately want to show this to a friend?
Because at the AI Slopathon, we're not searching for the next unicorn startup.
We're building what nobody asked for.
09 / COMMUNITY
Join thechaos.
The AI Slopathon doesn't just happen on submission day.
This is where ideas are born, teams are formed, projects are showcased, and increasingly ridiculous concepts come to life.
Inside the Discord
- #announcements
- #questions
- #general
Whether you're a developer, designer, artist, filmmaker,
musician, storyteller, or simply someone with an incredibly strange idea,
you'll fit right in.
10 / NOTES
- 1Do I need to know how to code?
- No. A good share of past winners had never opened a terminal before doors. The models do the typing; you do the deciding, and deciding is the hard part.
- 2What counts as slop?
- Anything built fast, with a model, that is satirical, whimsical, surprising, or genuinely funny. Ugly is permitted. Useful is suspicious. Boring is not allowed.
- 3How big is the trophy, really?
- 620 mm tall. See the elevation above — it is drawn to scale, and it does not fit in a tote bag.
- 4Can I enter on my own?
- Yes, and plenty do — solo entries win about as often. If you'd rather bring a team, only one of you needs to register; that person lists everyone else on the form, and the whole team counts as a single entry.
- 5How do I submit?
- Through the project Dropbox, by August 10. One submission per entry. Voting runs August 10–14, and winners are announced at the ceremony on August 15 at 11:00 AM EST.
