Season Zero · the build challenge

Submit without
writing code.

A submission is not a form and not a file. It is a card you drop at Haven on Demo Day, and the room collects it to vote for you. You make it by tapping through the app. Nine steps. Everything below happens on your phone, standing in the room.

Before the day

Two things, once.

  1. Make a room. app.gmcarl.xyz, email, the code they send you, your name and a colour. About twelve seconds. No password, no app store. this is also where your project lives between now and November
  2. Get your four beats written down anywhere you like — notes, paper, a voice memo you transcribe. The problem. What you built. Who is on the team. What happens next. You will paste them in on the day.

On Demo Day, at the venue

Seven taps.

  1. Stand where the drop should land and hold the map. The pin goes where you are standing, which is what pins it at the venue.
  2. Name it. The project’s name, on its own. Not a tagline.
  3. The small print. One line, on the face of the card: what it is and why anyone should stop. up to 500 characters, but one sentence beats five
  4. The story. Your four beats, in order: the problem, what you built, who is on the team, what happens next. Last line names your track, written exactly Track: GM Spaces or Track: Custom. this is a different field from the small print — it holds 2,000 characters
  5. A photo of the thing working, and a link to the demo. A live URL, a video, a repo or a deck. Https only.
  6. How they keep it: be there. Within a block of the pin. That is what stops somebody at home voting for you, and it protects you as much as anyone.
  7. Show the count. In the same step as the one above. This is the one that turns your card into a ballot.
    Miss this and nobody can vote for you, and you will not find out until the counting starts. It is the only setting on this page you cannot fix afterwards without losing the votes already cast.

Then drop it. The card is live on the map, the room can open it, and every person who keeps it is one vote. One each. Makers can vote too, including for themselves.

If you would rather not type it

Let an agent draft it.

There is a skill file for this. It asks you the eight questions, writes the name, the one line and the four beats, and hands you the settings checklist to tap in. It does not publish anything — you still drop the card yourself.

gm-submission — get the file → · the rest of the shelf

The rules behind all of this

Read them once.

Who can enter, the two tracks, the teams, the judging, the prizes and what you keep are all in the field manual. It is short on purpose.

The field manual → · Season Zero →