Big News, Rails Rumble is now Ruby Rampage!

Registration Dates & Competition Details

Sep 13, 2012

As we previously announced, the Rails Rumble is back! This year’s competition will be held from October 13th 00:00:00 UTC to October 14th 23:59:59 UTC and registration will be open from October 1st through October 7th (or until we run out of spots).

  • Registration: Oct. 1st - 7th
  • Competition: Oct. 13th - 14th

Back in 2010, registration was opened about a month ahead of the competition. You might be asking: “Why are they waiting so long this year?!” — don’t worry, we have a good reason! As crazy as it sounds, a few people were so excited in previous years to get a spot, that they reserved one, not knowing if they’d actually be available the weekend of the competition. As far as we’re concerned, an unused spot in the Rails Rumble is a crime against humanity. By moving registration closer to the actual competition, we’re hoping to avoid that kind of thing. But let it be known: we’re not above publicly shaming anyone that reserves a spot and doesn’t actually participate this year!

Our brand new design, courtesy of the awesome Zach Inglis, and when we’re opening registration for the Rumble, aren’t the only thing we’ve changed, though. Keep reading to see what else is new this year.

Sign In With GitHub

To compete, you’ll be required to sign in with GitHub. You can put away your tinfoil hat though, we’ll only be asking for read access to your public profile. If someone on your team doesn’t already have a GitHub account, they should question their life decisions sign up for a free one here, before registration opens.

Totally Revamped Judging

In previous years, each Expert Judge was asked to review and rate a handful of entries assigned to them. Expert Judge ratings were then used to narrow the field down for eventual public voting. No more!

This year, Expert Judges will be picking their 10 favorites from the entire pool of entries and ranking their picks from 1st through 10th. Then, we’ll combine all of the expert rankings to come up with the 10 Overall Winners, ranked 1st through 10th. Although judges will still be asked to consider all aspects of your entry, including: originality, usefulness, appearance, and completeness, they won’t be rating these categories individually. We think this will really help to bring the best entries to the top and keep things fair along the way. In addition to the 10 Overall Winners, we’ll also be awarding a special Best Solo award, based on the same expert rankings.

While Expert Judges are finding the best of the best, we’ll also be opening up our doors to public voting. Competition participants, as well as anyone else that’s interested, will be able to pick their favorite entry from the entire pool. When we announce the 10 Overall Winners and the Best Solo award, we’ll also be announcing a special Public Favorite award. And yes, you can win one of the two special awards alongside a spot in our 10 Overall Winners.

Linode Deployment Specialists

Our wonderful infrastructure sponsor, Linode, is back again this year and will be kicking in extra helping hands during the competition. Although servers can be setup quickly with StackScripts and we’ll be providing a simple Capistrano recipe for deployments, Linode Deployment Specialists will be around during the competition to help out anyone in need of it. So if you’re a newcomer to Rails, don’t worry, you’ll have help!

Calling All Sponsors

Sponsorship spots are filling up fast, so if you have a service you think a horde of ravenous app builders would be interested in, be sure to send an email to tom@railsrumble.com for more information.

You’ll be joining the ranks of our already confirmed sponsors, including:

So, Are You Ready?

I’m really excited about this year’s competition and hope you are too. You only have a few weeks, so get your team together, start brainstorming, and help spread the word by recruiting every developer and designer you know! That is, unless you’re afraid of a little competition?

- @tsmango