AES Student Competition: MATLAB Hackathon

Sponsored by MathWorks, the MATLAB Plugin AES Student Competition is an international contest for aspiring audio developers. For participating students, it constitutes an opportunity to learn, make connections with the industry, receive feedback from technical experts, and become an active part of the AES student community.

In 2025 the competition will again take the form of a Hackathon. Contestants may participate through an online submission.

The coding task will be announced at the event by an industry or research partner nominated by the AES. At that time, participants will also be provided access to any supplemental materials such as test data, code baselines, or reference papers. Participation in-person is strongly encouraged but not required.

To participate, you must:

1. 1. Be a current Student Member of the Audio Engineering Society.
      https://www.mathworks.com/academia/student-competitions/aes-matlab.html
   2. Be enrolled in a student program related to audio engineering or software design at the time of the event.
   3. If submitting on behalf of a team, this should be indicated during submission and it is assumed that all team members are in agreement.
   4. For team projects, all members must be enrolled students affiliated with a university audio program, verified through their respective faculty advisers. All team members must meet the eligibility criteria to present. Non-compliance will result in disqualification.

• June 7, 2025 10:00 AM EST: Announcement of Coding Challenge on AES Website.
• June 8, 2025 2:00 PM EST: Submission Deadline.
• June 9, 2025 12:00 PM EST: Winner Announcement
• Last week of June: Build Debrief and Feedback Session for finalists with judges online via Zoom.

Participants will upload their code and all required documentation to a secure server. A submission link will be provided at the time of the competition.

Submissions will be evaluated based on:

• Fulfillment of coding challenge criteria.
• Technical merit.
• Degree of innovation and originality.
• Creative value.
• Execution and code quality.

• First Prize: $2,000
• Second Prize: $1,000
• Third Prize: $750

   

Winners will be celebrated at the AES 2025 Convention. An in-depth technical feedback session with judges and finalists will occur online approximately a week after the convention.

The winners will receive a one day all-access pass to the 2025 AES Show in Long Beach, CA to participate in the awards ceremony and present a poster session.