HackGT 2022
HackGT is Georgia Tech's annual hackathon, a 36-hour period of coding and fun. Last year, in 2021, I teamed up with two friends, but the languages we knew didn't line up, making it difficult to work together.
This year though, I initially planned to attend alone. I mainly hoped to avoid the same issue, but I didn't want to bother looking for a team because I wasn't planning to be super serious. I asked my girlfriend to sign up and team with me, mainly for the free food, but also because she's better at designing and drawing than me.
The one plus was that I had an idea I wanted to code. On the Friday of HackGT, we attended the opening ceremony at 6PM, got dinner, and then the fun began. We coded from 8PM till midnight where we went and got the midnight snack (Insomnia cookies!) before heading back to our apartment and calling it a night.
Saturday we coded for hours, from the morning till late afternoon, where we then took a break and went to Stone Mountain's Pumpkin Festival. After getting back, the night was spent coding and submitting our project. Sunday morning we concluded with our expo.
Now, you might be wondering what was our project? After my roommate lost hundreds of dining dollars after not realizing they weren't refunded at the end of each school year, I came up with the idea to create a website that would allow students with the same dilemma a way to get rid of their excess dining dollars and meal swipes while also making some money back. We created BuzzDash, a website to do just that. There are two main users of BuzzDash. The first is the students who have excess dining dollars and meal swipes and are actively trying to get rid of them. The other is students that are willing to buy these funds for a discounted price. Students with excess fill out a sell offer, where they note the number of funds they have, how much they want to sell them for, and when they're willing to go swipe in or pay for others. On the other hand, students looking to buy can submit a buy request, filling out a similar form to note the number of funds they're looking for, how much they're willing to pay, and when they want to use it.
The design process was done on a whiteboard and documented here
You can also watch the recording we submitted here