The Noob Squad: 6 Newbies Dive into the Hackathon World

When our exams ended, we found ourselves in a strange world where Flutter, the tech tool we needed to use, felt as unfamiliar as a Martian language. Imagine this: a 24-hour hackathon, six of us, and not a single clue about Flutter. It was like going on a spaceship journey with nothing but a rubber duck for company. Our mission? Create an app that could impress even the toughest tech experts.

But here's the twist - there were not one, but two rounds at the college level. In round one, we had to showcase our creation to internal evaluators. If we managed to impress them, we'd earn the golden ticket to round two, where we'd face the scrutiny of external evaluators.

And if we managed to survive all of that, then and only then, we'd get to compete nationally. Get ready for a story of tech, teamwork, and a lot of confusion!

24 hours to go before the start of the hackathon!

I decided to set up my environment using Android Studio, which was a challenge in itself. The hostel Wi-Fi was terrible, to say the least.

It was already 8 p.m., and I was trying to fix errors while struggling with the Wi-Fi. But somehow, by 10 p.m., I managed to get everything set up. Then, I had a crazy idea: why not turn this 24-hour hackathon into a 48-hour marathon? Just a regular night for us engineers and hostel folks!

So, what did I do the whole night? Well, I spent the time getting to know the environment, and figuring out how it all worked. I also delved into the depths of Flutter documentation, trying to make sense of it all. And before I knew it, the clock struck 8 AM.

Well, now it was time to get fully prepared for the Hackathon. I decided to fill my bag with an arsenal of snacks, ready to fuel my coding escapades. Packing up my essentials, I made sure to include a pillow and blanket for those inevitable power naps (hackathons are all about efficiency, right?), but the most crucial item was my black hoodie - an emblem of my coding prowess.

And in the very last minute, I dashed to grab my laptop. Because, you know, 'priorities'!

At 2 p.m., the hackathon officially kicked off, and boy, was I overwhelmed! The sea of participants stretched as far as the eye could see, with a whopping 160 teams, each with 6 members. Amidst the chaos, I couldn't help but notice some folks who were already flaunting their apps like they were the next big thing. Confidence levels were off the charts, and I even overheard some guys discussing the fortune they'd make after winning the hackathon. It was like a startup pitching session on steroids, and I couldn't help but chuckle at the spectacle.

By 2:30 PM, we finally found our spot and set up our battle station. Of course, the Wi-Fi decided to be a party pooper initially, but hey, it just added to the suspense, right, and luckily, it got its act together later on!"

It took a good two hours for us to finally settle down properly. By 4 PM, I huddled with my friends, and we had a quick discussion about whatever I had managed to learn so far.

After that, we dove headfirst into work, and trust me, it was a glorious display of organized chaos. By the seventh hour, it felt like we were stuck in a hamster wheel going nowhere fast. But here's where our luck kicked in - the UI part was surprisingly smooth sailing. Thanks to the skills of our teammates Arvind and Harshanth, who were UI wizards, we were able to breeze through the design phase. And let me give you a sneak peek of our UI, it was like a work of art!

Now, let's talk about the implementation part. In those intense seven hours, well, I'm at a loss for words to describe it. So, instead of trying to explain, I'll let this video do the talking...

7 Hours Hard Work <--- (Click to watch the video)

We were having a blast initially, but as time ticked away, our enthusiasm started to wane. At this point, it felt like we were stuck in a desert with no oasis in sight. That's when we decided to regroup and reorganize.

We divided the workload; Preeti, Neharika, and Aditya took charge of implementing the frontend, with the noble goal of at least getting the navigation bar and a few pages working. Meanwhile, I took on the backend, specifically tackling the tricky notifications part. I was determined to contribute to this project, no matter what it took.

I embarked on a tutorial-watching marathon, but it seemed like the tutorials were playing hard to get, leaving me with incomplete information and a heap of errors. I even tried diving into the documentation, but, alas, I was making mistakes left and right, and without knowing what I was doing wrong, I had to hit the reset button multiple times.

It took me six to seven attempts, but when I finally cracked it, the sheer joy on everyone's faces was priceless. By that time, at least one page of the frontend was happily humming along. Slowly but steadily, we were getting back on track. And when the clock struck 2 AM, I had conquered the backend.

Now, it was time for a much-needed nap 😅. But when I woke up at 6 AM, it felt like a miracle had occurred. I discovered that my frontend team had been glued to their laptop screens, and what I saw on the screen was slowly resembling the UI we had envisioned. At that point, I wasn't entirely sure where we stood, but one thing was certain—we weren't at ground zero anymore.

By 8 a.m., the evaluations had already begun. Our frontend was ready as planned, and the backend was in place, but here's the twist: our project was scattered across different laptops like a puzzle. Now, your average developer would've turned to Git and GitHub to solve this conundrum, but since we were pretty much rookies in that department, we decided to take a different route – enter 'Protected Text.'

And just when we were getting desperate, Harshanth emerged as our saviour. He worked his magic, merging everything. By 1 p.m., we were finally ready with the whole shebang, and the time had come to present our creation to the evaluators.

We confidently presented our app, and to our delight, the evaluator not only understood our vision but also empathized with the problem we were trying to solve. It was a moment of relief and validation.

After the presentation, we headed back to the hostel for some much-needed rest. But just when we thought our journey had ended, the results were out. To our astonishment, we had made it to the second round! I couldn't believe it, this was beyond overwhelming. Out of the 160 teams, we managed to secure a spot among the top 60. We were ecstatic!

The second round required us to pitch the same concept, but this time to external evaluators. We gave it our all, but when the results arrived two days later, we didn't make it into the top 30. However, I couldn't help but feel content. We had come so far, and more importantly, I had found an incredible team to work with. The journey was far from over, and I couldn't be happier!

Thank you for reading !!

1 / Oct /2023

There's a twist in the story. SIH has increased the total number of teams per college from 30 to 60 teams, and in the first round, we were among the top 60 teams. So, yes, we have successfully cleared the college round😊😊