About

What is the Rails Rumble?

The Rails Rumble is a distributed programming competition where teams of up to 4 people, from all over the world, will have 48 hours to build an innovative web application with Ruby on Rails, or another Rack-based Ruby web framework. After the 48 hours are over (and a brief interim to review submissions), teams that successfully ship an app are considered judges and will each pick their favorite entries. All of the favorites will be combined to find the top 10 Overall Winners, ranked 1 through 10. In addition, voting will be opened to the public for a special, separate, Public Favorite award.

Are there official rules I can read?

Yes, there are! You can read the official contest rules here.

Is there an official Code of Conduct I can read?

To read our official Code of Conduct, check here

How are entries judged?

We ask our judges (teams that successfully ship apps) to consider a number of aspects, including: originality, usefulness, appearance, and completeness. However, these categories are not individually rated. Rather, judges should consider these aspects when coming up with a list of their favorite entries. Judges will then rank their favorites from most to least favorite and rankings will be combined to come up with the top 10 Overall Winners.

How many winners are there?

There are 10 Overall Winners, ranked 1 through 10, picked by the judges. Additionally, we’ll be awarding a separate Best Solo award for the best solo entry, according to the judges, and a separate Public Favorite award for the most voted-by-the-public entry. Because the Best Solo and Public Favorite awards are separate, you can win one of the overall spots in addition to one of the special awards.

When does the competition start?

The 2015 Rails Rumble will begin Saturday, November 7th at 00:00:00 UTC (midnight) and continue for the next 48 hours, until Sunday, November 8th at 23:59:59 UTC.

When does registration open?

Registration for the 2015 Rails Rumble will be opened on October 26th and will close on November 4th. We’ll open up as many spots as possible, but there will be limited space. Remember — first come first serve.

Where is the competition held?

It’s a virtual sort of thing. That is to say, your team can work from anywhere. Isn’t the Internet great?

What kind of things do I have to know in order to compete as a contestant?

Well, a solid grasp of Ruby, Rails, and HTML would be a good start! You’ll also need to have a basic understanding of Git (for source control and deployment to Heroku). We’ll be providing you with a Heroku app for use in the contest.

What do I have to do to help judge applications?

Aside from competitor judges, we’ll also be opening up to the public for a public favorite award. After the build part of the competition is over, you’ll be able to sign up as a public judge and pick your favorite entries.

Where will Git repositories be hosted?

Your Heroku app itself is a git repository, but GitHub will also be providing free private repositories to each team for the duration of the contest. You must use this repository for development (it’s a great excuse to learn Git if you haven’t already!) and someone from your team must push commits at least twice per day to demonstrate progress.

Where will the applications be hosted?

Each team will have a Heroku app made available to them at the start of the contest. All applications must be hosted this way - there are no exceptions.

If my company is a sponsor of the Rails Rumble, can I still participate in the competition?

Absolutely!

Can I use Heroku add-ons, third party gems, plugins, libraries, templates, icons, etc.?

Part of the beauty of the Rails ecosystem is the widespread availability of helpful gems and plugins. We encourage you to use any third party help that is publicly available. You must credit all applications, gems, and plugins that help your application stay afloat. You can do this in your team profile.

Can I develop a plugin or gem for my application before the competition?

So long as the plugin is publicly available and does not provide the majority of your application’s function. It would be acceptable to develop and release a plugin that provides an interface to an API or builds forms, for instance. It would be unacceptable to hide your controllers and views inside a plugin, “release it”, and install it once the competition begins.

What am I allowed to do to prepare for the competition?

You’re free to plan and design the requirements for your application. You’re also free to work on paper and/or digital UI mockups. You are not allowed to produce any production digital assets or any test or application code prior to the start of the competition. If you have questions, feel free to contact the organizers.

When will I have access to the Heroku app and GitHub repository?

You’ll receive access to both once the competition starts.

Can I use my own custom domain?

You can, if you want, but it isn’t required that’s for sure. We’ll provide every entry with a domain, something like your-app.r15.railsrumble.com. Also, please note that the *.r15.railsrumble.com subdomained URLs we provide are the official URLs everyone will be sent to. If you have a custom domain, you must still support requests coming into the subdomain URL we provide.

Does my application need to be open source?

The competition does not require it. We hope that some of you will deliver truly innovative web properties during the event; it shouldn’t be a requirement that you share your secret sauce with others unless you want to.

Where do I find my Heroku & GitHub information?

Check out your team’s dashboard for all the info you could ever need.

Can I push things from before the competition?

NO!

Can I change my Heroku app or GitHub repository name?

NO!

Can I edit commit hooks and deployment keys on my GitHub repository?

Yes!

Who makes this contest work?

The Rails Rumble is the hard work of a few organizers. They wrote the code that runs the contest, coordinate the stuff that needs coordinating, and herd the stray cats (there are a surprising number of stray cats).

Significant support is also donated by our infrastructure partners at Heroku and GitHub, without whom this would simply not be possible.

How can I find out more information?

The primary source for up-to-date Rails Rumble information is the blog. Make sure to subscribe the feed.

You can also follow @railsrumble on Twitter and visit the #rails-rumble Slackline channel, which tends to be a gathering place for developers interested in the Rumble. It’s a great place to find potential teammates and most of the contest organizers also regularly idle in there.

My company or organization would like to sponsor the event. How can I do that?

Contact the contest organizers with this form. They’ll hook you up, so you can hook them up.

Who should I contact about media relations or for general inquiries?

Contact us and we’ll get back to you as soon as possible.