Hackathon Chatrooms

Simple, anonymous* chatrooms for the Hackathon. Discuss with other Hackers about various topics relating to hacking, programming and computers.

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Inspiration

Our inspiration was derived from online forums, and the concept of a centralized communications platform for Hackathon participants.

What it does

Our project is a website that allows Hackathon participants to discuss various topics in text channels dedicated to the specific topic under their preferred pseudonym. Additionally, there are informational channels that are locked, meaning they are read-only, where users can have a centralized place to obtain important information regarding the Hackathon. We focused heavily on simplicity and quality.

How we built it

We built it using the free 1-year domain offer we obtained at the Hackathon, then utilized a free hosting provider to program the project. We ran the project under Chromebooks numerous times to ensure compatibility with them. Majority of the programming was done within Visual Studio Code, using the Live Preview extension in it. The back-end of the website uses PHP and MySQL. We purposefully ensured to use very little JavaScript. Worth noting that the domain is not going to be the permanent one.

Challenges we ran into

We ran into many issues regarding the chat feature, specifically in regards to the live updating aspect of it. Additionally, we ran into issues that impacted the back-end, where we were causing much excess load that did not need to happen.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We had successfully accomplished our goal of providing a very simple, centralized communication platform for participants of the Hackathon, which is our greatest accomplishment with this project. One further accomplishment we are proud of is the chat itself, which is very responsive and simplistic.

What we learned

I (Elias Murphy), specifically, got much further practice on my MySQL and PHP skills. I learnt how to make live chats using PHP and MySQL.

What's next for Hackathon Chatrooms

We will most likely continue to build out this web platform to add many new features, such as a properly instilled account system, customizable user profiles, team chats, and image uploading for chats.

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