McGill AeroHacksBuilt together · McGill 2026

Ideas on the ground.
Innovation in flight.

Students from around the world.
Three days of aerospace challenges.

A participant working with a small drone and a laptop at McGill AeroHacks
13–15MAR / 2026
MONTRÉAL, CANADA
Drone programming at McGill AeroHacks.

McGill AeroHacks 2026: our first aerospace hackathon at McGill University.

How we built it

500+registrations worldwide

220+participants worldwide

$30,000raised for the event

20+organizing team members

Three days of drone programming, computer vision, and autonomous flight.

An official MLH event

The work
behind the weekend.

We worked across logistics, partnerships, and technical development to make AeroHacks happen.

Programming on a laptop beside small drones during team preparation
Testing code and hardware before the event.

Event operations

We coordinated venues, schedules, communications, and participant check-in.

Partnerships

We secured sponsorships and worked with mentors, workshop facilitators, and judges.

Technical preparation

We prepared drones and supported three challenges: AeroPitch, RTM navigation, and autonomous hovering.

Hands adjusting wiring during workshop preparation
Preparing the drone hardware.
A small drone on the workshop floor
Drones ready for testing.
Behind the scenes

The team
behind AeroHacks.

Responsibilities overlapped. These credits highlight each person’s main areas of contribution.

The McGill AeroHacks team together in front of the AeroHacks 2026 presentation screen
McGill AeroHacks · 2026

Core organizers

Scarbo Chan

Founder & lead organizer

Led the event’s direction and coordinated the team, working across partnerships, operations, technical planning, and more.

Amy Wang

Core organizer

Recruitment, marketing, communications, design, event execution, and more.

Maral Ganbat

Core organizer

Partnerships, collaborations, sponsorships, event execution, and more.

Team & contributors

Kora Fang

Sponsorships · Photography · Operations

Hoai N

Event staff

Emma Lyon

Photography

Yelin N

Internal

Edwin Kim

IT Director · Technical support · Operations · Challenges · Judging support

Kevin Latijifoo

MLH Coordinator · Operations

Andres Arriaga-Sierra

Creative Director · Media · Operations

Arold Bonkoungou

Operations · Discord · Challenges

Special thanks

Thank you to these contributors and all our mentors and workshop facilitators.

Zehra Khoja

Workshop · McGill Dobson Centre for Entrepreneurship

Opening ceremony.

March 13, 2026 · 3 min 56 sec

Film by Andres Arriaga-Sierra.

Weekend recap.

McGill AeroHacks 2026 · 31 sec

Film by Amy Wang.

The program.

March 13–15, 2026. All times are local to Montréal.

Friday, March 13

5–6 PM
Hacker check-in
6–6:45 PM
Opening ceremony
7 PM
Hacking begins

Saturday, March 14

10–10:45 AM
GitHub mini event
10:55–11:25 AM
Intro to Python
11:30–11:45 AM
Tech Together + POWE talk / Code-a-Drone workshop
12–1:15 PM
Lunch with McGill Aerial Design / drone workshop
1:15–1:40 PM
Paper airplane challenge
2–2:30 PM
Tips of business pitch workshop
2:30–3 PM
Cybersecurity presentation
4 PM
Hacking continues
Throughout the day
Drone kits for testing, mentor office hours, snacks and Celsius.

Sunday, March 15

8 AM
ATC challenge submission due
10 AM
Drone challenge and AeroPitch submission due
11 AM–1 PM
ESP32 drone and AeroPitch competition judging
1:10–1:30 PM
Lunch + ATC challenge begin
1:30–2 PM
CAE + VFS presentation
2:15–3:15 PM
AeroHacks networking mixer
3:15–4 PM
Prizes + closing ceremony

Thank you.

To our team, participants, mentors, judges, and partners: thank you for making our first AeroHacks possible.

Scarbo’s portfolio