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Hackathon Guide

Everything you need to get started with NVIDIA Jetson at a hackathon. Setup tips, project ideas, and resources to help your team build an impressive AI project.

Hackathon Guide

NVIDIA Jetson Developer Kit

The NVIDIA Jetson empowers you to bring your innovative ideas to life.

It’s a powerful, compact edge AI computer with plenty of examples and learning resources to help your team build an impressive AI project at a hackathon. See examples of successful hackathon projects.

Explore the tips, guides, and resources below to get started and make the most of your Jetson experience.

Good luck, have fun, and happy hacking!

Initial Setup

Ideally, your Jetson developer kit comes pre-setup. But you can also set it up yourself.

Check the default username and password with the person or organization who provided the hardware.

  • Username: jetson
  • Password: jetson

The system is typically set up on a microSD card (for Orin Nano), and the device may also have an NVMe SSD attached for additional storage.

💡 Tip

If an SSD is available, see SSD + Docker Setup to move your Docker data directory to the SSD for faster container performance.

If the Jetson has not been set up, go through the initial setup guide that matches your hardware:

Physical Setup

A headless setup with Jetson’s USB Device Mode provides an easy way to connect your laptop directly to a Jetson with minimal cabling.

USB Device Mode connection diagram

Follow these steps:

  1. Take the Jetson developer kit out of the box and connect the bundled power supply.

  2. Find a USB cable to connect the Jetson to your PC (USB-C end goes into the Jetson).

  3. You should see a “L4T-README” drive automatically mounted on your PC.

  4. Open a terminal on your PC and SSH into the Jetson:

    ssh USERNAME@192.168.55.1

    📘 Note

    Replace USERNAME with the actual username set on the device. You will be prompted for the password.

How USB Device Mode works

When Jetson is connected to a PC, it acts as a USB Composite Device that presents several USB device classes:

  • USB Ethernet - provides a virtual NIC for SSH access
  • USB Mass Storage - lets the PC mount the “L4T-README” drive
  • USB Serial - provides serial console access

When connected to a Windows PC, “Device Manager” in “Devices by connection” view shows something like the following:

Windows Device Manager showing USB device mode

You can also get Jetson on a Wi-Fi network to have Internet access and allow your team members to simultaneously access Jetson.

If you have a PC monitor, DisplayPort cable, USB keyboard, and mouse, you can use Jetson as a standalone computer and do all the work on it.

Wi-Fi Connection

Connect Jetson to a Wi-Fi network (especially useful in headless mode):

sudo nmcli device wifi connect WIFI_SSID password WIFI_PASSWORD

Replace WIFI_SSID and WIFI_PASSWORD with your actual Wi-Fi network name and password.

Once connected, check the assigned IP address:

ip addr

Then SSH from any PC on the same network:

ssh USERNAME@JETSON_WIFI_IP

💡 Tip

Sometimes, the Wi-Fi network policy blocks device-to-device connections (like SSH).

USB Device Mode still lets you connect via the USB cable, but limits access to one PC. If your team needs multiple PCs to access Jetson simultaneously but Wi-Fi blocks SSH, bring a portable Wi-Fi router to create a local network.

Example Projects

There are many great AI project examples on this site. Here are a few to get you inspired:

Live VLM WebUI: Real-time Vision AI

Live VLM WebUI lets you evaluate Vision Language Models in real-time with a webcam. Point your camera at objects, scenes, or text and get instant AI-powered descriptions and answers.

Live VLM WebUI

This is a great starting point for building projects that need visual understanding - from accessibility tools to interactive demos.

Go to Live VLM WebUI tutorial →

Ollama : Run LLMs Locally

Ollama is a popular open-source tool for running large language models locally. It has official Jetson support, letting you run models like Llama, Gemma, DeepSeek, and more entirely on-device with GPU acceleration.

Go to Ollama tutorial →

More Ideas

Browse the full Tutorials page for more examples across LLMs, VLMs, VLAs, image generation, speech, and robotics. Check out the Community Projects page to see what others have built.

Troubleshooting

Cannot SSH into Jetson after connecting USB-C cable
  • Check if the green LED near the USB-C port is lit (power indicator). If not, verify the DC power supply connection to the wall outlet and the Jetson carrier board.
  • Check if the “L4T-README” drive appears on your PC. If not, try a different USB-C cable or check connections on both ends.
Cannot log in with provided credentials
  • Double-check the username and password you typed.
  • Someone may have changed the password of the default user. If you cannot find the updated password, you may need to reflash - see the Initial Setup Guide.
Jetson seems slow

Check your power mode:

nvpmodel -q

Install jtop (jetson-stats) to monitor resource utilization:

sudo apt install -y python3-pip
sudo pip3 install -U jetson-stats

The CTRL tab in jtop lets you change the power mode under NVP modes.

How to check Jetson resource utilization in real-time?

Install jtop:

sudo apt install -y python3-pip
sudo pip3 install -U jetson-stats
How to power Jetson with a battery?

Use a USB power bank that supports 12V output via Power Delivery (PD) with a USB PD to DC power jack adapter cable.

Resources