Details
When
Fri, Oct 23 · 4:00 PM - 9:00 PM
Sat, Oct 24 · 8:00 AM - 5:00 PM
Where
1 Memorial Dr, Cambridge, MA 02142
Microsoft New England R&D Center
Theme
Anti-drone swarm defense
Apply
Welcome to Action Space. Boston's first anti-drone swarm defense hackathon. Two days, hands-on. Claude, computers, and hardware that actually flies.
The theme is counter-unmanned aircraft systems (C-UAS): the policies and hardware that keep hostile drones off a site. Keep a swarm off a mock commercial site, a data center, a campus, whatever the high-value target is this round. Detect. Track. Defeat. Nothing reaches the perimeter.
You're not locked into one drone punching another drone. Build a defender swarm. Run tag-along interceptors with nets. Mix policy, multi-agent, and physical catch. Whatever holds the site.
Day one, Friday evening: Isaac Lab, PPO, multi-agent in sim. Day two, Saturday: each team gets a chance to run on multiple drones. Nobody owns a drone all weekend. Sim first.
Your mission: have fun. Build something awesome (or break it in spectacular fashion). Deny the swarm. Protect the site.
18+ only. Teams should have at least one person who knows software, hardware, or robotics so things keep running. We'll try to pair people with NVIDIA GPUs with people who don't. Seats are limited because of hardware. Rolling applications, final approvals by Oct 17.
We'll have more than $1,000 in prizes, and all food is included. Grand prize gets announced later.
Main goal isn't just competition. It's growing the local robotics and physical AI community, and getting this work outside of sketches.
Created by
Hosted at
Microsoft, Cambridge, MA
Hardware
Day one is Isaac Lab for everyone. Day two, teams get to use the drones. Approximate and subject to change.
Tello drones
Ten Tello drones. Teams get to use them on day two, on multiple drones, in a shared window. Not one drone parked at your table all weekend.
Intel RealSense
We have an Intel RealSense camera for depth and tracking work.
Isaac Lab
Sim first. PPO, multi-agent, detect-track-defeat loops. All teams train here before they fly.
Nets + tag-along
Don't want pure drone-on-drone? Fine. Tag-along teams with nets. Escort the intercept. Catch the inbound before it hits the base.
GPUs + pairing
Bring a laptop. We'll try to pair people with NVIDIA GPUs with people who don't. If a sponsor wants to help with compute, we'd love that.
Schedule
Both days at Microsoft, 1 Memorial Dr, Cambridge. Subject to change.
Friday, Oct 23 · 4:00 PM - 9:00 PM
Doors open and check-in
Opening ceremony
Isaac Lab lessons + PPO
Setup, Isaac Lab, and PPO agent work, all in the same block. Train defender policies in sim.
Dinner and office hours
Form teams. Pair GPU / no-GPU. Mentors available.
Hacking continues
Keep iterating in Isaac Lab. All hacking stays in sim today.
Hacking ends for the day
Saturday, Oct 24 · 8:00 AM - 5:00 PM
Doors open and breakfast
Live C-UAS window
Swarm inbound on a mock commercial site. Teams run on multiple drones. Nets, defender drones, mixed stacks. Your call.
Lunch
Live C-UAS window
Back on multiple drones after lunch. Deny the inbound.
Demos and judging
Judges go table to table.
Final submissions
GitHub, project docs, and a one-minute video.
Awards
That's a wrap
Speakers
More speakers will be announced as they're confirmed.
Antonio Loquercio
Speaker · Assistant Professor, University of Pennsylvania
Works on physical intelligence: robots that learn, understand, and act in the real world, reliably and adaptably. Main focus is sim-to-real transfer, using inaccurate world models to train end-to-end policies that map raw sensory observations straight to motor actions. PhD at the University of Zurich's Robotics and Perception Group with Davide Scaramuzza, then a postdoc at BAIR with Jitendra Malik.
Judges
More judges will be announced soon.
Carlos Peralta
Judge · Head of Data Platforms and ML Ops, WHOOP
Leads enterprise data and AI programs at WHOOP: large-scale datasets, governance, HIPAA compliance, and production MLOps in regulated environments. Advisory Council Member at Harvard Business Review. Previously eight years at Moderna as Global Director of Data Platform Engineering and Cloud Infrastructure, including COVID-19 / Operation Warp Speed work.
Dillon Johnson
Judge · Co-Founder, Stealth Startup
Co-founder of a stealth startup in Cambridge. Product design engineer at Apple and Beats: shipped millions of headphones, speakers, and audio products, including the PowerBeats Pro 2 and Beats Solo Buds launch out of Shenzhen. Before that, four generations of Spectacles AR glasses at Snap, including the stealth launch. MBA at MIT. B.S. Mechanical Engineering, Carnegie Mellon.
Jason Rubenstein
Judge · Head of Accelerator, TNT
Head of Accelerator at TNT in Cambridge. MBA fellow at Two Lanterns Venture Capital and an investor at Flybridge. Founder of pq industries. Teaching assistant at MIT Sloan for competitive strategy. Writes on continual learning, agentic file systems, and on-device infra. MBA at MIT Sloan. Economics at UMass Amherst.
Apply
Registration is on Luma. Approval required. 18+ only. Final approvals by Oct 17.
Sponsors
Venue partner
Thank you, Microsoft
Action Space runs out of the Microsoft New England Research & Development Center at 1 Memorial Dr, Cambridge, MA 02142. Both days, sim and drones, under one roof. Thank you for hosting us.
Still looking for partners on hardware, compute, food, and prizes. Compute especially. We'll pair NVIDIA GPU laptops with teams that don't have one, and we'd love help covering the rest. Want in? Open the sponsorship tab and send an offer. It emails jaromero3rd@gmail.com.
Team
Jaime A. Romero
Creator · MSE Robotics, University of Pennsylvania GRASP Lab
Graduate student at Penn GRASP, Master's in Robotics (expected May 2027). ML engineer on WHOOP's Sensor Intelligence team. Previously built autonomous-vehicle fleet systems at General Motors. B.S. Mechanical Engineering with a Robotics minor, Carnegie Mellon University. Work spans deep RL, machine perception, and autonomous drones, including PPO drone racing and Isaac Lab sim-to-real deployment.
The crew putting this together.
Sebastian
Organizer · Finance & AI, QofAI
Builds and scales the agentic systems behind QofAI's private-equity engagements, alongside the founding team. Previously SPAC research across crypto, travel, and banking. Runs The Lost Entrepreneur interview series and a travel channel featured on Good Morning America and the Boston Globe. Rows the Head of the Charles.
Savi
Organizer · Senior Robotics Engineer, Enyuare
Builds robots that cut manual work: a ROS2 work cell for automated cell culture, CV inspection for Delta's kitchens, ML for drive-thru automation. PhD research at Tufts and WPI on low-cost, bio-inspired 3D-printed soft robots. Four years industry, four years research, seven publications, three patents.
Sam
Organizer · Software Engineer, WHOOP
Student and developer across AI tools, cybersecurity, and full-stack web, from HTML down to Rust and C. Software engineer co-op on WHOOP's product security identity and auth team. COO and embedded software engineer at Northeastern Electric Racing: BMS on Azure ThreadX, STM32H5, traction control on the ECU.
Dhruvil
Organizer · Software Engineer 2, Robotics, Globus Medical
Entrepreneur by heart, techie by passion. Robotics software at Globus Medical in Rust and C++. Founded Metrux AI. Previously robotics and AI software engineer at Ideal Institute of Technology, building agentic workflows. Always up for a conversation about startups and robotics.
Credits and Inspiration
Revolute
Boston robotics + physical AI hackathon. We borrowed the page layout and event format from them.
revolutehack.com
Site structure, sections, and the credits block you are reading right now.
Similar hackathons
- Horizons Drone Hacks (Stanford) Nov 6-8, 2026
- Revolute (Boston) Aug 1-2, 2026
FAQ
What is Action Space?
Boston's first anti-drone swarm defense hackathon. Train in Isaac Lab, then run on multiple drones. Hold a mock commercial site against a swarm.
When and where is it?
Friday, Oct 23 from 4:00 PM to 9:00 PM and Saturday, Oct 24 from 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM. Both days at the Microsoft New England R&D Center, 1 Memorial Dr, Cambridge, MA 02142.
What is C-UAS?
Counter-unmanned aircraft systems (C-UAS): the policies and hardware that keep hostile drones off a site. Detect, track, defeat. Not a 1v1 dogfight.
Do we have to use drones to stop drones?
No. Defender swarms, tag-along interceptors with nets, mixed stacks. If it keeps the inbound off the base, it's in.
Does every team get a drone?
No. Day one is Isaac Lab for everyone. Day two, each team gets a chance to run on multiple drones. Ten Tello drones, shared.
Who can apply?
18+. Teams of four. At least one person who knows software, hardware, or robotics. Hardware seats are limited, so applications are reviewed on a rolling basis with final approvals by Oct 17. We'll try to pair people with NVIDIA GPUs with people who don't.
What do we get?
Isaac Lab lessons (PPO, multi-agent), ten Tello drones on day two, an Intel RealSense camera, nets if that's your defeat method, food, and more than $1,000 in prizes. Grand prize gets announced later.
How do I sign up?
Use the Apply section or go straight to luma.com/xl77cp4v. Approval required.
How do I sponsor?
Open the sponsorship page and send an offer. Compute help especially welcome. It emails jaromero3rd@gmail.com.
What if I still have questions?
Email jaromero3rd@gmail.com.