The Hackathon Hub

Inspiration

We’ve participated in and helped organize numerous hackathons — and each time, we faced the same chaos: juggling spreadsheets, form tools, and chat apps just to keep things running. We wanted to fix that. Hackathon Hub was born out of the need for a centralized, all-in-one platform that makes managing hackathons seamless for organizers, participants, and judges alike.

What it does

Hackathon Hub is a full-stack platform that simplifies end-to-end hackathon management. It allows users to:

• Register and log in securely
  
• Browse, host, and manage events
  
• Submit and view projects
  
• Form and manage teams
  
• Enable judging with a dedicated scoring interface
  
• Display awards and results
  
• Personalize their dashboard and theme settings
  
• Access help, documentation, and legal pages
  

Everything is handled in a single clean interface — no third-party tools required.

How we built it

We used a modern, developer-friendly tech stack:

• Frontend: React.js with Vite
  
• Styling: Tailwind CSS with support for light/dark mode and color themes
  
• Routing: React Router DOM for navigation and protected routes
  
• Backend & Authentication: Supabase for user auth and database management
  
• Forms & Validation: React Hook Form integrated with Zod
  
• Icons: Lucide React
  
• State Management: React Context API for auth and theming
  

The project is structured modularly to ensure scalability and maintainability.

Challenges we ran into

• Role-Based Routing: We needed to design separate views and permissions for admins, participants, and judges.
  
• Real-Time Data Sync: Ensuring consistent data updates across dashboards, especially for judging and project submissions.
  
• UI Complexity: Designing a clean UI that still supports advanced features like theming and user role differentiation.
  
• Supabase Learning Curve: Getting familiar with Supabase’s API and integrating auth and database flows smoothly.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

• Built a working MVP that handles real-world hackathon scenarios
  
• Implemented clean and secure user authentication
  
• Designed a multi-theme system with light, dark, and custom color schemes
  
• Created a platform that’s usable by hosts, participants, and judges with minimal onboarding

What we learned

• How to build scalable, real-world apps using Supabase and React
  
• Best practices for role-based dashboards and protected routing in React
  
• How to use Tailwind CSS for advanced UI theming and responsive layouts
  
• The importance of modular design and component reuse in large projects

What's next for Hackathon Hub

• Add real-time collaboration tools like chat and notifications
  
• Introduce custom judging rubrics and weighted scoring logic
  
• Deploy a production version and onboard early users
  
• Improve mobile responsiveness and accessibility
  
• Add analytics dashboards for event hosts to track engagement and performance

Built With

• css
• dom
• form
• hook
• lucide
• react
• react.js
• router
• supabase
• tailwind
• typescript
• vite
• zod