Facebook Inc. recently commissioned Bennett Awards to design and produce a custom awards design for a worldwide programming contest. Bennett Awards created the custom trophy for use as the “Facebook Hacker Cup”, a perpetual award for an annual coding competition. This was the inaugural year for the competition.
The event started with an online competition involving 11,768 contestants from around the world attempting to solve some difficult algorithmic coding challenges. 25 finalists emerged from this online phase, and were invited to Facebook’s Palo Alto headquarters for the finals, held March 12, 2011.
Each contestant had two hours to solve three programming challenges. The answers were graded, and a winner was announced. The winner, Petr Mitrichev, received a $5,000 cash prize, and his name was engraved in the perpetual trophy created by Bennett Awards. Bennett Awards worked collaboratively with Facebook to create this unique custom awards design. The unique awards design is based on the Hacker Cup logo, and features a raised fist with the word “HACK” embedded in it. The fist was created in brushed pewter, and its surface features a grid-like texture combining patina inlays and brushed pewter edges. The perpetual trophy is mounted on a concrete base. The base has a metal plate with the name of the award at the top fo the base, and, beneath that plate, smaller metals plates engraved with the winners’ names will be added each year. The custom trophy will be displayed in the lobby of Facebook’s headquarters.