Hackathon Copilot

Inspiration

At every hackathon, we’ve seen teams spend more time setting up than innovating. Hours go into repo setup, boilerplate code, designing slides, and finding a decent project name. By the time the demo rolls around, the actual innovation feels rushed. We wanted to solve that once and for all — by building a teammate that never sleeps and makes hackathons fun again.

What it does

Instant Branding: generates project names, taglines, and logos Ready-to-Code Setup: spins up a GitHub repo with boilerplate + CI/CD pipeline Pitch Deck in Minutes: auto-builds sleek slides (problem, solution, demo flow) Hackathon Survival Mode: suggests APIs, starter code, and automates deployments

How we built it

Used Roo to automate repo creation, CI/CD pipelines, and one-click deployments Integrated generative AI models to create names, taglines, and logos instantly Built a deck generator that exports directly to PDF/PowerPoint with hackathon-ready templates Designed the workflow around a simple input → output system: theme/idea in, working stack out .

Challenges we ran into

Beyond Boilerplate: We're moving past generic templates to give you code repositories that are truly ready to run, not just a starting point. Present-Ready Decks: No more tweaking AI-generated slides. We want to deliver pitch decks that are polished and ready to present. The Speed-Customization Paradox: Our goal is to balance instant, high-quality results with the flexibility you need for customization. Seamless Workflows: We're connecting different AI tools—for branding, code, and decks—into one smooth pipeline. This requires us to intelligently manage API request limits to ensure the whole process runs without a hitch

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Built a system that takes a vague hackathon theme and produces a live deployment + repo + pitch deck in minutes Demoed the end-to-end flow and actually saved 6+ hours of setup time Created something that could genuinely change how hackathons are run

What we learned

Hackathon teams value speed > perfection — done is better than perfect Automation shines when paired with AI creativity (branding + pitch + code) Judges love seeing tools that enable more innovation instead of just being another project idea

What's next for Hackathon Copilot

Support for multi-framework boilerplates (React, Django, Node, etc.) Built-in team collaboration features (invite teammates, assign tasks) API marketplace integration to recommend hackathon-relevant APIs A persistent hackathon dashboard to track idea → code → pitch in one place Maybe even becoming the default “Hackathon Starter Pack” for organizers

Built With

• css
• express.js
• geminiapi
• javascript
• node.js
• react