Machine Learning Marathon

The Machine Learning Marathon (MLM) is an annual 12-week ML/AI hackathon hosted by the ML+X community at UW-Madison. Each fall, teams of 2-5 tackle real-world challenges sourced from UW researchers, industry partners, and the broader Kaggle community. Challenges span a range of domains and difficulty levels – from beginner-friendly “Getting Started” projects to competitive “Active” challenges with prizes.

Most challenges remain open on Kaggle after the Marathon ends, making them great self-study material any time of year. Dive into the datasets, explore the discussion tabs for tips and solution writeups from past participants, and benchmark your own approaches at your own pace.

Want to participate live? Join ML+X and watch for the next Marathon registration each September. Interested in proposing a challenge? Visit ml-marathon.wisc.edu or reach out to Chris Endemann.

Explore past challenges

Clustering the BioTrove Dataset

Projects
ML Marathon
MLM25
Computer vision
Clustering
Unsupervised learning
Biodiversity
Image data
Deep learning
CLIP
Clustering the BioTrove Dataset was featured in the 2025 Machine Learning Marathon (MLM25). This challenge asks participants to discover genus- and species-level structure…
2025-09-11
Chris Endemann

Brain-to-Text ’25: Decoding Speech from Neural Activity

Projects
ML Marathon
MLM25
Deep learning
Signal processing
Time-series
NLP
Neuroscience
RNN
Brain-to-Text ’25 was featured in the 2025 Machine Learning Marathon (MLM25). This Kaggle competition challenges participants to decode intracortical neural activity during…
2025-09-11
Chris Endemann

MaveDB: Protein Variant Effect Prediction

Projects
ML Marathon
MLM25
Deep learning
Protein language models
Bioinformatics
Foundation models
The MaveDB challenge was featured in the 2025 Machine Learning Marathon (MLM25). Participants explored protein language models and other ML methods to predict variant…
2025-09-11
Chris Endemann

WattBot 2025: Estimating AI Emissions with RAG

Projects
ML Marathon
MLM25
RAG
Retrieval
LLM
NLP
Sustainability
Energy
GenAI
WattBot was an “Active” challenge in the 2025 Machine Learning Marathon (MLM25). Teams built retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) systems to extract credible…
2025-09-09
Chris Endemann

Natural Language Processing with Disaster Tweets

Projects
ML Marathon
MLM24
NLP
Classification
Deep learning
The Disaster Tweets challenge is a beginner-friendly NLP competition featured in the 2024 Machine Learning Marathon (MLM24). Participants build models to classify whether…
2024-09-12
Chris Endemann

UW-Madison GI Tract Image Segmentation

Projects
ML Marathon
MLM24
Image segmentation
Computer vision
Deep learning
U-Net
Medical imaging
Image data
UW-Madison
The UW-Madison GI Tract Image Segmentation challenge was featured in the 2024 Machine Learning Marathon (MLM24). Originally a major Kaggle competition (1,500+ teams), this…
2024-09-12
Chris Endemann

Infected Tomato Leaf - Vein Segmentation

Projects
ML Marathon
MLM24
Image segmentation
Computer vision
Deep learning
U-Net
Agriculture
Image data
UW-Madison
The Infected Tomato Leaf - Vein Segmentation challenge was featured in the 2024 Machine Learning Marathon (MLM24). This UW-Madison-originated Kaggle competition focuses on…
2024-09-12
Chris Endemann
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