What it is: handy and interactive version of the tracking sheet for students who don't want to open a boring pdf to see if they checked all the prereqs for a particular CS course.
Hackathon Project: A Learning Experience Over Perfection
Inspiration
Our team entered the hackathon with the goal of building a simple forum for university students to share and filter course reviews. However, we intentionally set a no-AI policy to focus on learning, even if it meant a tougher challenge.
What We Built
Initially, we aimed to develop a full-stack application with a backend handling user comments stored in a JSON file. However, since backend development was new to all of us, we struggled to implement it in the given timeframe. Shoutout to the backend team(Yuxin and Jared) who worked hard to implement it.
Twelve hours into the hackathon, we pivoted and decided to build a fully front-end project using just HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. The final webpage was very basic and lacked polish, but it was a product of determination.
Challenges We Faced
- Time Constraints: We switched ideas very late (after 12 hours), which left us with minimal time for execution.
- Lack of Backend Knowledge: Our original idea required backend development, which was challenging for our beginner-level team.
- Work Distribution: Due to time pressure, one team member(Jared) ended up doing most of the work on the new idea.
What We Learned
- The importance of adapting when things don’t go as planned.
- Basic web development skills (HTML, CSS, JavaScript) through hands-on work.
- The value of learning over winning—our team focused on gaining experience rather than just creating a perfect product.
Shoutout to Mimi, Bianca, and Aahana for their important contributions throughout the project. Even though some of their work didn’t make it into the final version due to our idea change, they all contributed greatly, whether it was coming up with ideas, designing pages, working on front-end styling, or collaborating with the team.
On top of that, we all navigated Git and GitHub together as a team—dealing with merge conflicts and figuring things out along the way. It wasn’t always smooth, but we worked through it. Regardless of the outcome, I appreciate the effort from everyone on the team
Final Thoughts
Even though our project wasn’t polished, we take pride in the fact that we didn’t give up. We respect our team members for their hard work and willingness to push through challenges, despite knowing we weren’t in it for the prize. This hackathon was a valuable stepping stone in our journey as developers.
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