4th "Helping Hands" Track

Description

Garuda Hacks 5.0 is a hackathon where the world's greatest talents will compete to solve the world's most pressing challenges using technology.

Experience

This was actually my first ever competition I participated in during college. Previously, I had only done Astronomy competitions in high school. So, this was also my first hackathon. It all began when Fatih asked me to join the competition. At that time, I thought, "Why not?" It was going to be a long holiday, and the competition would be held in South Tangerang (where Fatih and I live). I also asked Nuel (I had previously worked with on TEDxITB 7.0 ) and Angie (and also worked with on Parade Wisuda April 2024 ). They also live around Jabodetabek, so I figured it wouldn't be much of a hassle for them transportation-wise. A team of 4 had finally assembled. There were two main tracks for the hackathon: "Helping Hands" and "Stronger Together." The competition was held onsite at Multimedia University and lasted for 36 hours.

On July 11th, I went to the site with Fatih in a Grab Car since our houses are very close. When we arrived at the location, we were actually already late. We immediately went to the opening event where there were talks about tech companies (I think it was Paper.id). Then, at around 6-7 pm, the event started. We began brainstorming ideas. We chose to focus on "Helping Hands". We noticed that online gambling had become a very significant issue in Indonesia lately. It was all over the news, so we decided to create a website that could help people overcome their gambling addiction. We named the app "GambleGone" . We also rented a cheap hotel to stay for the night because we thought time would be very valuable during the 36-hour period if we didn't spend it on transportation. The hackathon rules also stated that we needed to check in to the place at least 2 out of 3 times. That first night was our first check-in. We started initializing the project, got our check-in, then found dinner and went back to the hotel. Fatih worked on the AI, Nuel and I on the website, and Angie worked on the design and pitch video.

On July 12th, I didn't sleep; I pulled an all-nighter. I think Nuel and Fatih slept for a good couple of hours. I worked on the home page, blogging page, and several other pages. I eventually fell asleep at around 9-10 am, then Fatih woke me up at around 11:30 to go to Friday prayers. After the prayer, Fatih and I ate lunch then started to work again. In the afternoon, around 3-4 pm, we went to Multimedia University again to get our second check-in. We stayed and worked there until around 9 pm to get our third check-in. We had to leave because I think there was a policy where you couldn't exit the building after 10 pm. Then we continued to work at the hotel.

On July 13th (Midnight), the deadline was around 7 am, so we had 7 hours left. Fatih, Nuel, and I were finishing the website part and optimizing it to ensure a great user experience. Fatih connected the AI model he trained to the website for the AI chat feature and the debt analyzer feature. The optimizing part was actually fun; we encountered an interesting problem where a seemingly static page was rendered dynamically by Next.js. It turned out that we used a function that accessed the cookies in the layout, causing the entire page beneath it to be rendered dynamically (cookies can't be used statically since cookie information can only be obtained in the request). One interesting topic for me was also connecting the Google Maps Places API to the website to find the nearest rehabilitation centers. It was particularly challenging to get the geo IP of the request, but eventually, it worked. Angie also started working on the pitch video. I think I actually fell asleep for a moment around 5 am until 6 am, but in the end, we successfully uploaded the pitching video and also the posted the devpost article .

Then we all slept until around 12 pm. I didn't really enjoy the sleep; it wasn't as good as at home. We went to get lunch at a nearby local restaurant. After that, at around 4 pm, we went to Multimedia University to hear the announcements. Thankfully, we got 4th place in the Helping Hands track. Not bad, considering it was also my first time joining a hackathon. I met a lot of cool people there, many of them students from ITB (mostly seniors). Big thanks to the Garuda Hacks 5.0 team for organizing such an epic event. For a more complete detail about the app, you can read this post .

Bonus story: So it was already around 7 pm. Fatih and I planned to go home together by ordering a Grab Car. But Fatih actually left something at the hotel, so we had to go back there first. Coincidentally, Angie's dad was picking her up at the hotel (I think she left something there too), so Fatih and I went back to the hotel. Then there was this funny accident where the car tire bumped into a curb, and the tire exploded. I think it was my first time seeing a tire go that bad, HAHA. We helped Angie's dad change the tire. It was an amazing and funny experience. After that, Fatih and I went straight home.