Arcana

Inspiration 💡

With 65% of young Indonesians feeling a decline in nationalism, and globalization accelerating the erosion of traditional values, the urgency to preserve and promote cultural identity has never been greater. Indonesia's vast cultural diversity holds immense potential—not only as a source of national pride but also as a powerful driver of social and economic progress.

According to Nahak (2019), cultural preservation can be approached through cultural experience and cultural knowledge. This insight inspired us to explore how modern technology—especially AI and 3D modeling—can breathe new life into cultural learning. By combining digital exploration with authentic storytelling and interactive engagement, we aim to make Indonesian heritage more accessible, relevant, and engaging for the younger generation through Arcana.

What it does ❓

Arcana is a digital exploration portal for historical sites and local products, preserving Indonesia's cultural richness, in an immersive 3D experiences.

Transforming 2D images into interactive 3D models using Cube by Common Sense Machines (CSM)
Displaying cultural content through a map-based interface as a tourism entry point
Community forums that allow users to share cultural experiences from their local surroundings
A platform for local entrepreneurs to showcase and market their products, increasing competitiveness and visibility
An AI-powered chatbot that helps users explore and learn more about specific cultures

How we built it 👷🏻‍♂️

Frontend: Vite + React + Tailwind We used Vite as our build tool for its lightning-fast development experience and hot module replacement, which significantly sped up frontend iteration. The UI is built with React, enabling a highly dynamic user experience with reusable components. Tailwind CSS was our utility-first CSS framework of choice, allowing us to rapidly prototype and maintain a consistent design system without bloated stylesheets.The frontend communicates seamlessly, rendering interactive views such as:

Cards of historical sites and local product through map
Embedded 3D model viewers
AI chat interface for cultural learning
Community-sharing pages

Backend: Hono Framework + Drizzle ORM For the backend, we chose the Hono Framework—a minimal, high-performance web framework optimized for edge environments. This allowed us to build fast, scalable API routes with minimal overhead. Data interactions are managed using Drizzle ORM, a type-safe and declarative ORM that provides clean SQL-like syntax and excellent TypeScript support. This helped us avoid bugs and maintain strict control over our schema as we scaled.

Database: PostgreSQL + NeonDB We store structured data in PostgreSQL. We deployed it using NeonDB, a modern, cloud-native solution that supports features like branching (for safe schema testing), serverless scaling, and low-latency read replicas.

AI Integration: Gemini API + Cube by CSM We used Gemini API to power AI-based interactions, that is a conversational assistant that guides users through cultural topics. To create immersive experiences, we leveraged Cube by Common Sense Machines (CSM API) to convert one 2D image of cultural artifacts into 3D models.

Challenges we ran into 🏃🏻‍♀️

We encountered several challenges, especially since this was our first time participating in a 30-hour offline hackathon. Even choosing one of the three available tracks was difficult—but as we explored our options, we realized the immense potential of the cultural preservation track, which ultimately inspired us to create Arcana.

One of the most technically demanding parts was integrating a 3D transformer model from a single 2D image. It was our first time tackling this, and finding a model that fit our needs took considerable time and experimentation. Beyond technical hurdles, we also faced moments of self-doubt—being surrounded by so many talented teams and brilliant ideas was both inspiring and intimidating. At times, we questioned our own concept, but in the final hours, we found a second wind and pushed forward with renewed energy and motivation.

The brainstorming phase was intense, and with limited time for sleep or rest, it truly tested our endurance. The time management process was also quite hard to handle. Within this limited time, we need to know when is the right time to work on the project, to take a rest, to network and to have fun with friends. Despite all this, the experience was incredibly rewarding and full of growth.

Accomplishments that we're proud of 🏆

We’re incredibly proud of pushing ourselves to take on such an ambitious challenge. Through this bold idea, we’ve come to truly value our project, Arcana. It has been a journey of growth—allowing us to explore new frameworks and cutting-edge AI technologies that we can apply across various fields.

What we learned📕

We learned a lot about teamwork, thinking boldly, and believing in ourselves. Along the way, we also gained valuable technical knowledge and hands-on experience with new tools and technologies.

What's next for Arcana ⏭️

Arcana also still has many potentials to explore in the future, such as AR implementation and development of point system for gamification. These are the idea we keep on thinking about throughout the Hackathon time. We believe, Arcana can become a bridge of technology and culture!