Circuit.Rocks Backs Create & Conquer 2026 as Keystone Sponsor: FEU Tech CpEO Hackathon

Circuit.Rocks stepped up as a Keystone sponsor of Create & Conquer 2026, the hackathon organized by the Computer Engineering Organization (CpEO) of FEU Institute of Technology, together with the FEU Innovation Center (FTIC) and ICpEP.SE – NCR. The event ran June 23 to 30, 2026 in a hybrid setup: face-to-face at the FEU Tech Innovation Center in Manila, online for remote participants.

This is our second student hackathon this season, right after SparkFest 2026 at PUP. Different campus, same reason: student builders with a deadline and a judging panel learn faster than any lecture can teach.

What Create & Conquer 2026 was

Create & Conquer isn’t a one-afternoon sprint. CpEO ran it as a full week-long build cycle:

June 23 – orientation and kickoff, with the theme announced on the day.
June 26 – project proposals due.
June 27 – top 8 finalist teams announced.
June 29 – final project submissions.
June 30 – Demo Day: live project demonstrations, judging, and the awarding ceremony.

Teams of 4 to 6 competed for a P18,000+ prize pool, and the door was wide open: junior high, senior high, and undergraduate students from anywhere in the Philippines, no coding experience required. That last part matters. A week is enough time for a team that walked in with nothing but an idea to walk out with a working demo.

What Keystone sponsorship means

As a Keystone-tier sponsor, Circuit.Rocks backed the event with monetary support and showed up in the program itself:

A seat on the judging panel – we got to grill the finalists on Demo Day alongside the other judges.
A 20-minute speaker session – our slot to talk hardware, prototyping, and what the local maker scene looks like from the parts side.
“Powered by” billing – Circuit.Rocks branding across the event’s materials.

Sponsoring a hackathon from the judging table is a different experience from sponsoring it from the parts bin. You see exactly where student teams get stuck, which ideas survive contact with a deadline, and what a good pitch sounds like when the demo behind it actually works.

Scenes from the week

The FEU Tech Innovation Center made a good hackathon floor: team tables under the sticky-note murals, a podium for the program, and enough room for mentors to circulate. Here’s how it looked.

Opening the Create & Conquer 2026 program at the FEU Tech Innovation Center — Opening the program at FTIC, flags up and rooms full.

Speaker at the Create & Conquer 2026 podium with the FTIC Innovate Collaborate backdrop — Create. Innovate. Collaborate. The program ran from this podium all week.

Team names set the tone early. Exhibit A and B:

Team Null Hypothesis at their table during Create & Conquer 2026 — Team Null Hypothesis, ready to reject.

Team It Works On My Machine at Create & Conquer 2026 — Team “It Works on My Machine.” Every developer in the room felt that one.

Between milestones, mentors and organizers made the rounds. This is the part a rulebook can’t replace: a stuck team, a laptop turned sideways, and someone who’s hit the same wall before pointing at the fix.

Mentors making rounds at team tables during Create & Conquer 2026 — Mentor rounds at the team tables.

Team gathered around a laptop during a consultation at Create & Conquer 2026 — Whole team, one screen, one problem.

Team showing their project build on a laptop at Create & Conquer 2026 — A build taking shape on screen. This is what a week gets you.

Participant speaking on the mic during Create & Conquer 2026 — Mic time. Questions and consultations kept the room honest.

Guest speaker session at Create & Conquer 2026 — Speaker sessions ran alongside the build, industry stories included.

And because no Filipino student event ends without one: the raffle, the prizes, and the group photo.

Hosts spinning the raffle wheel at Create & Conquer 2026 — The raffle wheel does its thing.

Raffle winners with their prizes at Create & Conquer 2026 — Raffle winners with their haul at the FTIC backdrop.

Create & Conquer 2026 participants and organizers group photo at FTIC — The whole floor, one frame. Create & Conquer 2026, done.

Why we keep backing student hackathons

Circuit.Rocks has been shipping parts to Filipino makers since 2015. The students who become confident engineers are the ones who built something real early, and hackathons compress that first build into a week: form a team, claim an idea, survive the proposal cut, demo in front of judges. Create & Conquer’s hybrid format pushed that even wider, since a team in the provinces could compete without a bus ride to Manila.

To CpEO, FTIC, and ICpEP.SE – NCR: well run. To every team that made the top 8 and every team that didn’t: the demo you built in a week is the start of a portfolio, not the end of one.

Links

Event details live at the Create & Conquer 2026 site, and CpEO posts its activities on the FEU Tech CpEO Facebook page. For the parts to keep building after Demo Day, the Circuit.Rocks store is at circuit.rocks.

Frequently Asked Questions

What was Create & Conquer 2026?

Create & Conquer 2026 was a week-long hybrid hackathon organized by the Computer Engineering Organization (CpEO) of FEU Institute of Technology with the FEU Innovation Center and ICpEP.SE – NCR. It ran June 23 to 30, 2026, face-to-face at the FEU Tech Innovation Center in Manila and online for remote participants, ending with Demo Day and awarding on June 30.

Who could join Create & Conquer 2026?

Teams of 4 to 6 members, open to junior high school, senior high school, and undergraduate students across the Philippines. No coding experience was required, and the hybrid format meant remote teams could compete online.

What was Circuit.Rocks’ role in Create & Conquer 2026?

Circuit.Rocks was a Keystone-tier sponsor. That covered monetary support for the event plus a seat on the judging panel, a 20-minute speaker session, and “Powered by” branding across event materials.

This article was inspired by reporting from Create & Conquer 2026 and the FEU Tech Computer Engineering Organization. Find the parts and modules to build it at Circuitrocks.