Wentworth Partnering with LOGIC to Host ‘Global Freight Frenzy’
Registration is now open for the Global Freight Challenge, taking place next week in the Accelerate Makerspace
Routing cargo across the globe is complicated enough. Now add extreme weather, infrastructure failures, and real-time disruptions.
That scenario is what competitors will face next week during Global Freight Frenzy, a 27-hour, capture-the-flag-style hackathon designed to simulate high-pressure logistics. The event is hosted by Accelerate, Wentworth Institute of Technology’s Innovation and Entrepreneurship Center, and logistics technology venture LOGIC.
Running from 9:00 AM on Wednesday, April 15 through 12:00 PM on Thursday, April 16 at the Accelerate Makerspace on Wentworth’s campus, the event challenges teams of up to three students to build the software capable of managing these chaotic systems. Teams will battle the clock to transport the maximum volume of goods across a simulated global environment while minimizing energy consumption.
At the center of the partnership is Michael Santora, Wentworth trustee, Entrepreneur in Residence, and alum (Architecture and Civil Engineering '05, Hon. ’25), who founded LOGIC with the mission of reimagining how goods move across complex, multi-modal networks. For Santora, the challenge students will face on April 15 is not an academic simulation, it’s the actual problem LOGIC is working to solve.
Working on the Actual Problem
Mike Farmer, Dean of the School of Computing and Data Science, says the event could not come at a more relevant moment. "This is a unique hackathon opportunity in that it focuses on the real-world problem of international logistics," Farmer said. "The timing of an event like this couldn't be more important with the Middle East conflict disrupting shipping lanes."
Farmer also sees the challenge as a natural extension of what students are already learning in the classroom. "There are so many really interesting Artificial Intelligence-related issues within this type of problem and a number of candidate solutions they can develop, many of which are based on the course content in our AI classes."
That real-world urgency is exactly what drew LOGIC to the partnership. "We’re fundamentally solving a coordination problem at LOGIC. We look at how to move goods across complex, multi-node, multi-modal systems as one continuous network," said Santora. "That problem exists today in global supply chains and will become even more constrained in future lunar and interstellar operations, where resources, energy, and time are limited."
Global Freight Frenzy is structured to put students directly inside that problem. Each team will write software that controls a fleet of vehicles (by land, sea, and air) inside a provided simulator that advances in real time. Teams interact with the simulated world by issuing commands to create and direct vehicles, load and unload cargo, and navigate routes. Actions that violate physical constraints, like sending a truck across an ocean, for instance, cost time.
Throughout the competition, the organizers will inject unpredictable challenges that teams must respond to on the fly, including traffic congestion, weather events, infrastructure failures, and schedule disruptions. A live dashboard will track vehicle movement across a 3D globe, showing delivery progress, energy use, and standings throughout the event.
Final scores will be based on a combination of total goods delivered, energy efficiency, and overall operational effectiveness.
"We are particularly interested in how students approach tradeoffs between speed, energy consumption, routing complexity, and system-wide efficiency," Santora said, "because those are the same constraints that define both terrestrial logistics and future off-world supply chains."
What the Judges Will Be Looking For
When the LOGIC team evaluates projects, they will not be focused on which tools or programming languages students used. Santora says the bar is higher than that.
"We’re less focused on any single programming language or tool, and more focused on how students think about systems," he said. The team will be looking for the ability to understand how a decision in one part of a network ripples across the whole, to balance competing constraints like time and energy, and to build solutions that can adapt as conditions change.
"What stands out most is when a team moves beyond solving a single path or route and instead builds a framework that can continuously make decisions across the system," Santora said.
Bridging the Classroom and Industry
The event reflects a broader vision Santora holds for what the relationship between industry and higher education can look like. Rather than the traditional model of learning first and applying skills later, Global Freight Frenzy puts students inside a live industry problem in real time.
"Events like this effectively remove the gap altogether," Santora said. "It's not hypothetical. This is directly representative of a real and unsolved problem in the global supply chain."
For Farmer, teaming with LOGIC represents a meaningful evolution of Wentworth's co-op model. "This partnership will be a unique extension of our co-op model where students can work on more complex projects that would take longer than a single co-op term and blend their work learning experiences and classroom learning experiences at an even deeper level," he said.
Ashley Lucas, Executive Director of Accelerate, echoes that enthusiasm. "We are excited to expand our partnership with Michael Santora and LOGIC, offering students the chance to innovate with a company at the forefront of technology and robotics," she said. "This collaboration opens powerful new opportunities for our innovative students to create real-world impact through hands-on, industry-driven problem solving."
From an industry standpoint, Santora says events like this offer a clearer signal than a resume ever could.
"Students are not just demonstrating technical ability, they’re demonstrating relevance," he said. "We are seeing how someone approaches a real problem that matters."
A Path to the Real World
For the winning teams, the reward is an immediate foot in the door. LOGIC will be extending on-the-spot co-op offers, with a direct path to accelerated full-time roles, as well as the chance to see what they built deployed in real-world logistics systems.
"Students can be part of a campus community while also working on the kinds of problems and systems they’ll see in their careers, which can potentially lower the overall cost of their education," he said. "Over time, this creates a different kind of institution where students are not just prepared for industry but are already participating in it."
How to Register
Global Freight Frenzy is open to Wentworth students. Teams may have up to three members. Registration is free, and participating students will be provided with meals and on-campus housing for the duration of the event. A variety of prizes will also be awarded.
- Date: Wednesday, April 15 – Thursday, April 16, 2026
- Time: 9:00 AM – 12:00 PM EDT
- Location: Accelerate Makerspace, Center for Engineering, Innovation and Sciences (CEIS) Ground Floor, 555 Parker Street, Boston, MA
- Register: wit.campuslabs.com/engage/event/12345370