Questions?
Let's debug them.

No. The WebForge is designed to be approachable for participants who are still learning. Preparation workshops will introduce the development workflow and tools used throughout the event.

No. You should be willing to learn, experiment, solve problems, and work with your team. AI is intentionally part of the development process.

University students who complete registration may participate. Final eligibility details will be confirmed by the organizers before the event.

Bringing your own laptop is required for every workshop day and for competition day.

Also bring your charger and access to the email and development accounts you plan to use. Install a modern browser, Visual Studio Code, Git, and Node.js in advance. Any additional venue-specific requirements will be announced with the time and location.

No. Participants who do not already have a team can use the WebForge team formation process to create or join one.

Yes. You may register alone. The team-formation process can also help individual participants join or create a team.

A team may include the primary registrant and up to ten additional member email addresses. Only registered team members may collaborate on the competition solution.

Request team changes through the organizer contact form before competition day. Changes are valid only after the organizers confirm the updated roster.

Yes. This is an AI WebForge. AI use is encouraged throughout the development process.

Yes. AI may generate part or all of your application. There is no requirement to manually write a specific percentage of the code.

Yes. Standard paid consumer AI plans such as ChatGPT Plus are allowed.

No. The highest-tier or advanced premium AI plans are restricted to maintain fairness between participants.

Participants are not restricted to one AI provider. The same AI access principle applies: free and standard consumer paid tiers are permitted, while the highest-tier or advanced premium access is not.

If participants are unsure whether a specific plan is permitted, they should ask an organizer.

Yes, provided they comply with the competition's AI access policy.

Your team is responsible for the final application. If something breaks, you must be able to investigate the problem, direct your tools toward a solution, test the result, and verify that the application works.

Yes. WebForge 2026 includes three workshop days on 11, 12, and 14 October 2026, all developed and taught by Shoug Alomran. Workshops are hybrid, so you can attend in person in E231 or online. Competition day is 17 October 2026 and is in person only.

Day 01 covers planning and the development workflow. Day 02 covers full-stack development and debugging. Day 03 covers deployment, domains, search discovery, and performance. Together they walk through the same workflow used on competition day.

Workshop attendance is strongly recommended because the competition assumes familiarity with the full workflow. Participants remain responsible for learning the published presentation material and completing the handout checklists before competition day.

All three workshop days, including what each one covers, are on the Workshops page.

That is part of the challenge.

Teams will receive the official application brief when the challenge is released. The exact application should remain secret beforehand.

The challenge will be released on competition day.

No. Teams may prepare and practice beforehand, but they may not begin building a solution specifically for the competition challenge before it is officially released.

Teams should be prepared to adapt during the competition.

Only members of your registered team may provide human assistance with the competition project. AI assistance is allowed.

No. Competing teams may not share challenge-specific code, prompts, solutions, debugging solutions, implementation details, or strategies during the competition.

Each team submits:

1. Live production website
2. Custom domain or subdomain
3. GitHub repository
4. Excalidraw functional diagram
5. Working Firebase authentication
6. Working persistent data functionality
7. Required application features
8. Completed unexpected change request
9. Google Search Console setup
10. Bing Webmaster Tools setup
11. PageSpeed Insights result

The application must be functional during judging.

Yes. The final application must be publicly accessible for judging, deployed and connected to a domain or subdomain.

No. The judged submission may not be modified after the official deadline unless organizers explicitly authorize it.

Projects are scored out of 100 points across seven categories, covering functional completeness, technical implementation, problem solving and adaptability, UI/UX, system understanding, production readiness, and the final demonstration. The full breakdown is on the Competition page.