Fourth Estate
Mason’s Computer Science Club and PatriotHacks hosted HackFax x PatriotHacks, a 72-hour hacking challenge, from Friday, Feb. 13 to Sunday, Feb. 15 on campus. The event brought students from over 30 colleges and a total of over 500 participants, according to the organizers.
The community-building event was both a Capture The Flag (CTF), where participants completed short security challenges, and a hackathon where participants collaborated to build software or hardware projects in a short amount of time. The hackathon was also an official Major League Hacking member event.
Major League Hacking is dedicated to building the hacker community across the world, giving insight and guidance on organizing major events. The organization sent a representative to Hackfax x PatriotHacks to ensure the event went smoothly.
They also provided students access to developer tools like Gemini, GitHub Copilot, DigitalOcean, ElevenLabs, Solana and Snowflake. Students at the event could borrow devices from the DigiKey hardware lab like Raspberry Pi, Google Home and Arduinos to return at the end of the weekend.
Throughout the weekend, students participated in workshops on various topics including “User Interface/User Experience” design by Peraton, “How to Pitch Ideas” by Colorstack, “How to Maximize Total Compensation” by the National Society of Black Engineers and a women in STEM panel and early career panel provided by Microsoft employees.
Note: Also see article in Mason News article HackFax x PatriotHacks 2026 entered the Major League with a 72-hour Valentine’s weekend event.
