Weekend Challenge: Earth Day Edition
A short-form challenge that fits into your weekend!
Happy Earth Day, everyone! 🌍
To celebrate our beautiful planet, we're launching a special Earth Day Edition of the Weekend Challenge. This is a chance to reflect on our relationship with the environment and build something inspired by nature, sustainability, or our shared home.
Whether you're passionate about climate action, biodiversity, green tech, or simply love the outdoors, we want to see what you create!
We'll select four overall winners and six prize category winners who utilize a specific technology as part of their challenge submission. Each winner takes home $100 USD, a DEV++ Membership, and an exclusive DEV badge.
Because our community spans every timezone on the planet, we've set the window so that everyone around the world gets at least a full weekend to participate.
Here's what our launch time looks like across a few timezones:
| Timezone | Launch Time (Local) | Submissions Due (Local) |
|---|---|---|
| PDT | Thursday, Apr 16 at 7:00 PM | Sunday, Apr 19 at 11:59 PM |
| EDT | Thursday, Apr 16 at 10:00 PM | Monday, Apr 20 at 2:59 AM |
| GMT | Friday, Apr 17 at 2:00 AM | Monday, Apr 20 at 6:59 AM |
| CEST | Friday, Apr 17 at 4:00 AM | Monday, Apr 20 at 8:59 AM |
| IST | Friday, Apr 17 at 7:30 AM | Monday, Apr 20 at 12:29 PM |
| JST | Friday, Apr 17 at 11:00 AM | Monday, Apr 20 at 3:59 PM |
| AEST | Friday, Apr 17 at 12:00 PM | Monday, Apr 20 at 4:59 PM |
Key Dates
- Contest start: April 17, 2026 2:00 AM UTC
- Submissions due: April 20, 2026 6:59 AM UTC
- Winners announced: April 30, 2026
Badge Rewards
Find Out More
Ask questions and share your ideas on the Weekend Challenge: Earth Day Edition Launch Post.
View Launch PostChallenge Prompt
Build for the Planet
With Earth Day just around the corner, we welcome you to build something inspired by the planet. Please interpret this prompt however you'd like. Honoring your favorite green spaces? Solving carbon emissions? Reimagining our entire planetary relationship? Any angle is fair game!
This challenge introduces six prize categories for participants who incorporate a specific technology into their project. You don't need to use any of these tools to be eligible for our overall winner spots, but if you're curious about any of the tech, this is a great excuse to give one a try.
- Best use of Backboard
- Best use of Auth0 for Agents
- Best use of Google Gemini
- Best use of Snowflake
- Best use of GitHub Copilot
- Best use of Solana
Pro Tip: since prize category winners are drawn from a smaller pool of submissions, your odds of taking home a prize are meaningfully higher.
Note: You may use multiple technologies in a single submission to qualify for multiple categories, but participants are limited to one win per challenge.
Judging Criteria:
- Relevance to Theme
- Creativity
- Technical Execution
- Writing Quality
- Use of Prize Category Technology (optional)
How To Participate
Publish a post on DEV using the submission template. Your post should give us an overview of what you built, what inspired your project, and a demo.
Helpful Links & Resources
- Create an Auth0 account and enable Auth0 for AI Agents
- Auth0 for AI Agents Documentation
- How-To Guides
- MCP Authentication Guide
- Auth0 Developer Center
Frequently Asked Questions
Participation
Can I submit more than once?
Yes, you may submit more than once, but we encourage you to focus on quality over quantity and put your best efforts into a single submission. Note that you can only win one prize category per challenge. That said, you're welcome to incorporate multiple prize category technologies into a single submission to qualify for multiple categories simultaneously.
Can I work on a team?
Yes, you can work on teams of up to four people.
- If you collaborate with anyone, you'll need to list their DEV handles in your submission post so we can award a badge to your entire team! Please only publish one submission per team.
- DEV does not handle prize-splitting, so in the event that your submission wins, you will need to split the prize amongst yourselves. Thank you for understanding!
How old do I have to be to participate?
Participants need to be 18+ in order to participate.
If I live in X, am I eligible to participate?
For eligibility rules, see our official challenge rules.
Submission
Can my submission include open source code?
Riffing on open source code and borrowing and improving on previous work/ideas is encouraged but it's important your changes are significant enough to ensure your submission is valid.
What happens if my submission is considered plagiarized or invalid?
Anything deemed to be plagiarism will not be eligible for prizes. Incidental plagiarism may simply result in your disqualification from the challenge (regardless of the number of other valid submissions you have published). Egregious plagiarism will result in your suspension from DEV entirely. Any non-generic, non-trivial usage of prior work, including open source code must be credited in your submission.
Do submissions have to be in English?
Non-english submissions are eligible for a completion badge but not eligible for prizes due to the current limitations of our judges. We will not be judging on mastery of the English language, so please don't let this deter you from submitting if you are not a native English speaker! We hope to evolve this in the future to be more accommodating.
Can I use AI?
Use of AI is allowed as long as all other rules are followed. We want to give you a chance to show off your skills in realistic scenarios. If you use AI tools to help you achieve your submission, all the power to you.
Judging and Prizing
Can there be ties?
In the event of a tie in scoring between judges, the judges will select the entry that received the highest number of positive reactions on their DEV post to determine the winner.
How will I know if I won?
Winners will be announced in a DEV post on the winner announcement date noted in our key dates section.
When will I receive my DEV badge?
Both participation and winner badges will be awarded, in most cases, the same day as the winner announcement.
When will I receive my prizes?
The DEV Team will contact you via the email associated with your DEV profile within, at most, 10 business days of the announcement date to share the details of claiming your prizes.
What steps do I need to take to receive my cash prize?
The winner (including each member of a team) may be required to sign and return an affidavit of eligibility and publicity/liability release, and provide any additional tax filing information (such as a W-9, social security number or Federal tax ID number) within seven (7) business days following the date of your first email notification.
Weekend Challenge: Earth Day Edition Rules
NO PURCHASE NECESSARY. Open only to 18+. Contest entry period ends April 20, 2026 at 6:59 AM UTC. Contest is void where prohibited or restricted by law or regulation. All entries must be submitted during the contest period. For Official Rules, see DEV Weekend Challenge Contest Rules and General Contest Official Rules.