Beginner Track Portfolio

🧠 Inspiration

We wanted to take full advantage of Hack404’s beginner track format by building across multiple areas in tech—from AI to design to hardware. Our goal was to build useful, beginner-friendly tools that could make life a little easier or more fun, while learning new technologies quickly.

💡 What it does

We completed three microhacks, each solving a different problem:

1. UI/UX Microhack – Hack404 Website Redesign

We redesigned the Hack505 website in Figma, focusing on cleaner navigation, bolder visuals, and a more welcoming landing page for new hackers. Extra features:

• pinned messages
• starred/bookmarked activities
• a live and updated schedule

2. AI Agent Microhack – Personal AI Assistant + Mental Wellness Bot

We took a simple OpenAI chatbot and upgraded it with multiple features:

• 📋 Reminder system: Add, list, and delete reminders with natural time parsing
• 🌤 Mood tracker: Get personalized advice based on your mood
• 🏆 Achievement log: Log what you accomplished today with automatic timestamps

3. 3D Modeling Microhack – Multi-Angle Phone Stand & Organizer We designed a functional phone stand in Fusion 360 that supports multiple viewing angles and has space to hold pens, sticky notes, and other stationery.

🛠️ How we built it

• Figma: Used collaboratively to design the Hack505 site UI.
• Python + OpenAI API: Customized an existing chatbot to add reminders, mood features, and achievement tracking.
• Fusion 360: Modeled the desk organizer/phone stand with parametric design for customizability.
• We kept our AI microhack simple by avoiding threading and focused on keeping the code readable and beginner-friendly.

🚧 Challenges we ran into

• Learning Figma’s collaborative tools (components, auto layout) on the fly.
• Natural language time parsing was finicky—getting reminders like "in 10 minutes" to work took trial and error.
• Fusion 360 and Onshape's constraint system took time to learn, and we had to iterate the design multiple times to ensure it was both practical and printable.

✅ Accomplishments we’re proud of

• Completed 3 full microhacks and attended 5 microhacks across very different areas.
• Made a real, usable AI assistant that could help with daily mental health, reminders, and motivation.
• Learned collaborative UI design in Figma for the first time.
• Designed a functional hardware product in Fusion 360 with minimal prior experience from 2/3 of us!
• Pushed ourselves outside our comfort zones while keeping things beginner-accessible.

Built With

• alith
• figma
• fusion
• onshape
• openai
• python