Expand your network
Collaborate with like-minded engineers in the U.S. military.
Black Relay 2026 Not your average hackathon...
August 15th - November 22nd
In partnership with
Arrowhead Research Field Systems Program
The Mission:
Build a portable, survivable safehouse operating stack for temporary sites.
- Four-month technical build that concludes with an in-person field event
- Designed for engineering talent in the military looking to exercise their unique capabilities.
- No contracts or commitments. Participate in your spare time.
SAFEHOUSE STACK
DEGRADED-READY
- Awareness
- Sensor fusion online
- Continuity
- Local services resilient
- Operator View
- Alerts normalized
Team Breakdown
Four teams, one integrated safehouse stack.
Team 01
Fabrication
Make the system physically fieldable, modular, transportable, serviceable, and fast to install.
- Collaborative CAD
- Enclosures and mounts
- Cable routing
- Setup and teardown workflows
Team 02
Detection
Turn raw sensor inputs into meaningful site awareness with confidence and corroboration.
- Sensor architecture
- Ingest pipelines
- Event schema
- Alert prioritization
Team 03
Survivability
Keep essential functions alive and visible when links, components, or power degrade.
- Power model
- Edge compute
- Backhaul progression
- Health telemetry
Team 04
TAK
Transform technical outputs into clear operator workflows, overlays, and decisions.
- TAK plugin concept
- Common ingest contract
- Alert hierarchy
- Health visualization
Can't decide?
Submit a general applicationWhy participate?
The benefits
Play with cool hardware
Your bill of materials is funded by Arrowhead and event sponsors.
Add to your resume
Build in the open and add real contributions to your portfolio.
FAQ
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I have to be in the military?
Participants must be active military or actively drilling Guard or Reserve members. Veterans and industry supporters can apply as advisors.
What if I don't have any experience?
You do not have to be an expert, but this is not a boot camp. You should be able to contribute meaningfully to your team.
Who owns the IP?
Black Relay is built in the open and will be open sourced under the MIT license.
I don't think I'll have the time. Can I still participate?
Life happens. We expect at least a few hours per week, but family and your day job come first.
Still have questions?
Reach out to us at info@arrowheadresearch.org
Previous Black Relay
Built in the field.
A look back at the last Relay: hands-on systems work, field testing, and team-built hardware. See last year's GitHub repo.
