Qiskit Fall Fest 2024
SIGQuantum is proud to be partnering with the Qiskit team at IBM to present UIUC’s inaugural Fall Fest!
Join us on a monthlong exploration of quantum computation and information, with:
- Guest speakers from UIUC’s IQUIST and from industry partners
- A quantum software development workshop series covering everything you need to implement a quantum algorithm in Qiskit
- Open-signup undergrad ⚡lightning talks⚡ to share your research and/or learn about what other people are doing
- And more!
Quick links
Give a lightning talk!
Register here!
Join our Discord
Event calendar
Zoom meeting for upcoming meeting
View previous Fall Fest events
QUIUC Hacks [kwɪk hæks] (Hackathon)
UIUC’s Fall Fest hackathon is an opportunity for you all to build something cool using what you’ve learned this semester, while also contributing to the scientific community at large.
QUIUC Hacks differs from a traditional hackathon insofar as there are no leaderboards or judges—but fear not, there is still free pizza and swag! This is a time for you to collaborate with not only your classmates and peers, but also with developers across the globe. The focus of QUIUC Hacks is to give back to the field of Quantum Information, not only for the next generation of scientists, but also for today’s engineers/academics/researchers/sleep deprived students (and yourselves!).
Here are 3 broad (not exhaustive/mutually exclusive) ideas to get you started:
Contribute to an open-source quantum software project
If you’ve ever wanted to fix an annoying bug, add a feature you’re missing, or just want to get more familiar with a particular project, this is a great opportunity to open a PR and tackle it head-on!
You’re also welcome to work on a fork, create a project from scratch, or continue working on an open-source personal project.
Create an educational resource
Although open source usually is in reference to software, your “QUIUC hack” doesn’t have to be software related. We want you to consider “what resources did I wish I had when I was learning XYZ thing?”
For example, you could peruse the open-access QIS journal Quantum and write a blog post or survey about a SOTA paper. Or create an educational blog post about quantum group theory. Or design an experiment!1 It’s really up to you, get creative!
Get your (game) jam on
Although QUIUC Hacks isn’t really a proper game jam, you’re welcome to work on a game or other forms of media. You’ll find that pretty much any project you would build at QHack/iQuHACK is completely fair game; if you have questions, feel free to ask in the SIGQuantum Discord.
Hackathon Q&A
When/where?
November 15-17 (Friday–Sunday), both in-person in Siebel Center for CS and remotely. There will be FREE FOOD in person! (Unfortunately, we can’t use quantum teleportation to provide pizza to remote participants.)
Rules?
- Whatever you worked on must be open source (permissively licensed under MIT, Apache, GPL, Creative Commons, etc)
- Give a short presentation on what you worked on (can be done with multiple people)
Do I have to start and finish my project during the event?
No, and in fact we encourage you to broaden your scope to projects that will live beyond “abandoned side project”—for example, even just a single patch can have a lasting positive effect for millions of users! And although some projects can be done in a weekend or even a few hours, many cannot; instead of rushing to produce something half-baked, you should take the time to do it right (you can still present even if you project is a work in progress!).
This seems cool, but I don’t know much about quantum mechanics… Can I still participate?
Yes! As an example, rustworkx is a high-performance alternative to the general-purpose graph library networkx. This is used not only internally by Qiskit for faster circuit transpilation, but also by hundreds of other projects wherever blazingly fast 🚀 graph algorithms are needed! You don’t need to know the first thing about a qubit to make a PR.2
I don’t know where to start/I’m unfamiliar with contributing to open source/Oh god an eldritch horror corrupted my pip install what do I do
On November 12 we will have a meeting going over:
- How to setup Git/GitHub, fork a repo and create a pull request upstream
- Time to help with any toolchain or software setup problems (e.g. Python+Qiskit)
- Suggestions for different conference proceedings/journals/papers to look at
- Overview of some open source projects/ecosystems, good first issues, and contributor etiquette
How do I register?
If you’re in the SIGQuantum Discord, you’re already registered. Feel free to invite other people!
How many people can I work with?
As many as you want; work with whomever and however many people you choose.
Does it matter how many lines of code/words I write?
No.
Fall Fest FAQ
Q: What is Qiskit?
A: Qiskit is a software ecosystem for writing and running quantum circuits (via simulation or on actual quantum hardware!).
Prior knowledge of Qiskit (or Python) is not stricly required to participate in the hackathon, but we suggest that attendees unfamiliar with quantum computing or software development attend our Qiskit workshops to get a feel for it.
Q: Has anyone actually built a quantum computer?
A: Yes, including many people here in Champaign—Urbana!
Q: Do I have to be a student at UIUC to participate?
A: Nope! Anyone can join in, although most events will be in-person.
Q: But I don’t know quantum mechanics..?
A(ssurance): Fear not!
The majority of activities at Fall Fest will not require more than some elementary linear algebra knowledge (it’s not rocket science, after all 😉).
And if you haven’t taken linalg yet, don’t worry!
3B1B has an excellent course available freely on YouTube, and if you just want the bare essentials you can check out some of our previous meetings to get the gist of things.