A New Hackathon Format Bridging Physical and VR Venues in Real-Time!NASA Space Apps Challenge Ube 2025: Event Report

Introduction

Hi there! I'm Nishida (a.k.a. nisshi) from Code for Yamaguchi.

On October 4th and 5th, 2025, we hosted NASA Space Apps Challenge Ube 2025, a NASA-organized global hackathon, in Ube City, Yamaguchi Prefecture and in a VR space (Resonite).

For this hackathon, we experimented with a new format: running two venues—a physical location and a VR space—simultaneously in real-time.

While this made things quite challenging on the operational side, we successfully wrapped up the event thanks to the support of many people.

In this article, I'll share an event report covering what NASA Space Apps Challenge is all about, along with highlights from our two days of development and presentations.

Our official website:

Event registration page:

Additionally, one of our sponsors, WeaverseLab Inc., issued a press release ahead of the event.

Event Overview

Here's how we organized the event:

• Event Name: NASA Space Apps Challenge Ube 2025 (Yamaguchi Prefecture)
• Date & Time: October 4th (Sat) 10:30 - October 5th (Sun) 19:30, 2025
• Venues: Physical venue: Ube Startup (Ube City, Yamaguchi Prefecture), VR venue: Resonite
• Organizer: Code for Yamaguchi
• Sponsors: GMO GlobalSign Holdings, Inc., WeaverseLab Inc.
• Fab Equipment Sponsor: FabLab Yamaguchi
• Supported by: Ube City
• Cooperation: Ube Startup, Ube City Space Education Promotion Council
• Judges: Kenya Tamura (CEO, Eukarya Inc.), Tatsuya Fukuda (Kichinang Group Inc.), Shiro-san (Graduate student, Yamaguchi University / Vice-representative, Chijo IT Study Group / Operator, Yamaguchi VR Circle "FUGU")
• Local Leads: Nishida (author), Chie

For the physical venue, we received support from Ube City (Yamaguchi Prefecture), with whom we've had an ongoing relationship. The event was held at "Ube Startup," the city's startup support facility.

Haga-san from our sponsor, GMO GlobalSign Holdings, Inc., served as a technical mentor, providing technical support to each team.

He also wrote a post-event report, so please check it out for more details.

Meanwhile, the VR venue was hosted on the social VR platform "Resonite."

WeaverseLab Inc., the exclusive Japanese distributor for Resonite, provided comprehensive support for the VR venue, including venue preparation, equipment provision, and integration with the physical venue.

The VR venue is still publicly available as it was at the end of the event. If you're curious, feel free to check it out! (Resonite can also be accessed from a Windows PC.)

They also set up a VR experience corner at the physical venue (with Meta Quest 3 and a gaming laptop).

Orange-san, who contributed both as a participant and on the operational side, also wrote a report, so please check it out!

Additionally, FabLab Yamaguchi, our Fab equipment sponsor, set up a 3D printer (BambuLab A1 mini) at the back of the physical venue. Some teams used Fab equipment in their development, such as 3D printing planetary surface data from NASA 3D Resources.

We also provided food and drinks at the networking party on Day 1 at the physical venue. This was made possible by the sponsorship of GMO GlobalSign Holdings, Inc. and WeaverseLab Inc..

In the end, we had a total of 24 participants (Physical venue: 10 people, 3 teams / VR venue: 14 people, 4 teams).

What is NASA Space Apps Challenge?

Before diving into the event itself, let me briefly introduce this hackathon. If you're already familiar with it, feel free to skip ahead to The Event.

"NASA Space Apps Challenge" is a hackathon event held simultaneously around the world, initiated by NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration), aimed at utilizing open data related to space, Earth's environment, and satellites.

In this hackathon, participants use open data provided by NASA to create solutions for presented challenges over 2 days.

Since hackathons are held worldwide, participants choose their preferred local venue to attend.

After the hackathon, each local venue conducts its own judging, and the top 1-2 teams (depending on the number of participants) are nominated for NASA's global judging. NASA researchers and engineers then evaluate the submissions and select the finalists.

In 2025, a total of 551 local venues were set up worldwide.

In Japan, 5 venues were established: Marumori (Miyagi), Fukaya (Saitama), Tokyo (Tokyo), Kushimoto (Wakayama), and Ube (Yamaguchi).

▪ References:

• Space Apps Challenge: Results and Metrics
• Local Events List

2025 Challenges

For 2025, NASA presented 18 challenges plus one open-ended theme (not eligible for judging).

Unlike typical hackathons, participants select from these many themes and develop their projects accordingly.

As an example, let me introduce the Deep Dive: Immersive Data Stories from Ocean to Sky challenge. In short, anything goes as long as you create VR content using Earth observation datasets.

Some challenges specify VR content as the output format, but many challenges don't restrict the output format.

Deep Dive: Immersive Data Stories from Ocean to Sky
Theme: VR/Interactive
Difficulty: Intermediate to Advanced
Summary: Satellite observations provide scientists with insights into our dynamic Earth, but for those without remote sensing experience, accessing the stories hidden in these datasets isn't easy. Thanks to NASA's open data policy, these observations are available not just to scientists, but to the general public as well. Your challenge is to leverage NASA's Earth observation datasets and visualizations to build a short, immersive virtual reality (VR) experience that brings stories about Earth's oceans to life, communicating data, its beauty, and its impact to a broad audience. Through visual, spatial audio, and interactive elements, VR experiences can help users better understand the stories of Earth's oceans.

An easily accessible data source is NASA 3D Resources, which offers many 3D models related to space and satellites. Most are distributed in .glb format, making them very easy to use.

That covers the overview of NASA Space Apps Challenge and an example challenge. We introduced other challenges in the pre-event hackathon participation briefing and challenge reading session. If you're interested, please check them out.

The Event

The event followed this schedule. While we had some troubles like unstable connections between the physical and VR venues, we wrapped up without any major issues.

Day 1: Saturday, October 4th, 2025

Opening & Team Building

During the opening, we explained the hackathon overview, rules, and conducted team building while connecting the physical and VR venues in real-time.

Development Time

Teams decided on their themes and started development.

Some VR venue participants also streamed their work sessions.

Watching them work in VR—like running VS Code in virtual space—was a unique sight that caught the interest of physical venue participants.

Exchange with Other Venues

Since this hackathon has the unique format of being held simultaneously around the world, we also had an exchange with the Marumori (Miyagi) venue this year. We connected via Slack Huddle, showing each other's venues and having a brief exchange.

Interim Presentations

Just before the interim presentations, the VR venue had an amazing surprise: with help from our sponsor WeaverseLab, they 3D scanned the physical venue and recreated it in VR space...!

The VR venue's interim and final presentations were held in this 3D scanned space.

Even though only about 5 hours had passed since development started, many teams already had visible progress, making us excited for the final presentations.

Networking Party (Sponsor Lightning Talks)

After the interim presentations, it was time for the Day 1 closing networking party. Thanks to our sponsors, we were able to provide food and drinks.

The party kicked off with sponsor lightning talks from our sponsoring companies.

We also had interactions with the VR venue during the party. Many participants who had been watching the VR venue's work sessions during development time seemed curious about it.

We wrapped up Day 1 with group photos at both venues.

We received photos of teams working late into the night and early the next morning.

Day 2: Sunday, October 5th, 2025

Development Time Starts

Day 2 started at 10:00. With the code freeze at 15:00 approaching, we saw diverse team approaches—some pushing development with the whole team, others dividing tasks between development and slide preparation.

At 15:00, code freeze hit, and it was finally time for final presentations.

Live Stream Begins

From here, we also started a YouTube Live stream, looking back at the two days of development before moving to the final presentations.

Local Awards Introduction

For the Ube venue, we prepared four awards: Grand Prize, People's Choice Award, Wakuwaku Award (provided by GMO GlobalSign Holdings, Inc.), and Weaverse Award (provided by WeaverseLab Inc.). Additionally, VR venue participants received commemorative badges displayed in VR space as participation prizes.

Judges Introduction

For the Grand Prize judging, we invited three judges: Kenya Tamura (CEO, Eukarya Inc.), Tatsuya Fukuda (Kichinang Group Inc.), and Shiro-san (Graduate student, Yamaguchi University / Vice-representative, Chijo IT Study Group / Operator, Yamaguchi VR Circle "FUGU").

Final Presentations

Finally, 7 teams (Physical venue: 3 teams / VR venue: 4 teams) gave their final presentations. Each team had 4 minutes for presentation plus 3 minutes for Q&A, totaling 7 minutes each.

We saw an incredibly diverse range of projects: a team building a web simulator for material analysis, teams visualizing data on the web or in VR, a machine learning team, and a team simulating meteorites in VR. There was almost no overlap in development themes.

After all presentations, judges and participants had time for demo experiences while the judging took place.

VR venue teams had Q&A sessions with judges through VR headsets or Discord voice channels.

Award Ceremony

After heated deliberations among the judges, the award ceremony took place. This year saw an exceptionally high level of quality, with very close margins between teams.

• Wakuwaku Award (provided by GMO GlobalSign Holdings, Inc.)

After judging by GMO GlobalSign Holdings, Inc., team "RileoMaru" received the award.

As a sponsor, we provided one year of our hosting service "GMO Cloud ALTUS BASIC" free of charge. We presented the "Wakuwaku (Excitement) Award" to the team that made us feel the most excitement about future possibilities with their "spirit of enjoying challenges."

• Weaverse Award (provided by WeaverseLab Inc.)

After judging by WeaverseLab Inc., team "team resolab" received the award.

The prize included All-constellation folding umbrellas for each team member.

• People's Choice Award

Based on votes from physical and VR venue participants as well as YouTube Live viewers, team "RileoMaru" won the most votes and received the award.

The prize was an assortment of space merchandise.

• Grand Prize

Finally, the Grand Prize announcement. After heated deliberation among the judges, team "UniSpace - Resonite" was awarded the prize.

The prize was a deluxe assortment of space merchandise.

While the winning teams deserved their recognition, the teams that didn't win were also at an incredibly high level, making for a very close competition. Check out the link below to see all the projects developed by each team.

Closing & Group Photo

Finally, we took group photos and exchanged closing remarks to wrap up the event.

Conclusion

That wraps up the event report for NASA Space Apps Challenge Ube 2025. Thank you for reading this long article!

This time, we organized a new hackathon format with two venues—a physical location and a VR space—running simultaneously in real-time. Participants at both the physical and VR venues were keenly aware of each other, leading to natural interactions. We received positive feedback from participants at both venues saying they "had a great time," which is very satisfying as an organizer.

After the final presentations, seeing many people from the physical venue wanting to enter the VR venue and talk with VR participants showed us new possibilities for VR use, making this a very fruitful event.

Once again, I'd like to express my gratitude to everyone who supported this event. We were able to successfully conclude the event thanks to all of you.

• Sponsors: GMO GlobalSign Holdings, Inc., WeaverseLab Inc.
• Fab Equipment Sponsor: FabLab Yamaguchi
• Supported by: Ube City
• Cooperation: Ube Startup, Ube City Space Education Promotion Council
• Judges: Kenya Tamura (CEO, Eukarya Inc.), Tatsuya Fukuda (Kichinang Group Inc.), Shiro-san (Graduate student, Yamaguchi University / Vice-representative, Chijo IT Study Group / Operator, Yamaguchi VR Circle "FUGU")
• Local Lead: Chie
• Operations team members, those who helped set up the VR venue (Resonite), all participants, and everyone who cheered us on

As a VR enthusiast and hackathon enthusiast, I'm very satisfied that we could try this new initiative.

I plan to continue organizing events that combine VR and reality, so please continue to support us.

Promotion

This event was organized by "Code for Yamaguchi," a tech community supporting challengers with ties to Yamaguchi Prefecture.

If you're in Yamaguchi Prefecture and struggling to find opportunities for technical exchanges, or if you're looking for people to discuss technology with, or if you have ties to Yamaguchi and want to see what activities we're doing, please join our Discord server. On Discord, we share technical discussions and information about hackathons like this one, as well as members' recent activities.

Articles by Participants

Our sponsors and participants have written participation reports. Please check them out!

Also, the Grand Prize-winning team "UniSpace - Resonite" was featured in the VR media outlet "Mogura VR"! 🎉

Collection of X Posts About the Event

Addendum: Global Winners Announced

On December 18th, the Global Winners of NASA Space Apps Challenge 2025 were announced.

From over 11,500 submissions, the top 10 teams were selected.

Unfortunately, no teams from the Ube venue or Japan were selected...

You can view works from around the world, so if you're interested, please check them out.