<AI Programming Jam/>
ACM Programming Jam 2026 (JAM.26) is an AI-assisted web engineering event at Prince Sultan University. Every team receives the same application brief, then plans it, designs it, builds it, deploys it, and presents it. I wrote the content for all three preparation workshop days, taught them, and built the official event website.
What I built and taught
- [>] I wrote the content for all three workshop days — planning and development workflow, full-stack development and debugging, and deployment with production readiness — including the objectives, walkthroughs, and hands-on steps for each session.
- [>] I taught every one of the three days. The event site states it plainly: all workshops are developed and taught by Shoug Alomran.
- [>] I designed and built the official JAM.26 website at ai-programming-jam.shoug-tech.com — the workshop pages, competition breakdown, rules, FAQ with search, and the team registration flow.
- [>] I structured the workshops so that the three days rehearse the exact workflow teams use on competition day, rather than teaching tools in isolation.
One brief. Four phases. A working application.
Teams receive a single shared application challenge and carry it from requirements all the way to a deployed, measured, demonstrated product.
Understand & Plan
Read the requirements, map how the system works in Excalidraw, and design the interface in Variant.
Build & Connect
Develop in VS Code with Codex and Claude Code. Add authentication and persistent data with Firebase.
Deploy & Measure
Version with GitHub, deploy to Vercel, configure the domain in Cloudflare, then measure with PageSpeed Insights.
Adapt & Present
Respond to the unexpected change request, then demonstrate and explain what you built.
Open a section
The event is documented across four pages: what the three workshop days teach, how competition day runs and is scored, the rules that govern AI use, and the questions participants ask most.
Workshop Days
Three days that take a participant from an idea to a working, deployed web application: planning and workflow, full-stack development and debugging, then deployment, domains and production readiness.
Competition Day
The six-step competition loop, the 100-point rubric across seven categories, the timeline of the day, what judges verify, and the full submission checklist.
Rules & AI Policy
AI may write the whole application — within limits. The AI access tiers, and the eleven things a team cannot do.
Questions
Experience needed, team size and formation, which AI plans are allowed, what the workshops cover, and what each team has to submit.
Think. Build. Adapt. Ship.
The workshops give teams the workflow. Competition day tests what they can do with it — without the tutorial wheels.