The Idea Confusion #
Another hackathon — and honestly, I was very excited for this one. Midwest Block-a-Thon took place at the University of Kansas, and the energy there was great from the start.
Like most hackathons, we walked in with an idea… only to realize pretty quickly that another team had already claimed something very similar. Our original plan was to build a decentralized version of Upwork. Cool idea, but no longer unique.
So we pivoted.
Block-a-Tick #
The brainstorming phase took longer than expected. We spent about an hour and a half just talking, discarding ideas, and trying to land on something that felt both interesting and achievable within the time limit.
Eventually, we landed on Block-a-Tick — a decentralized ticketing platform, similar to Ticketmaster, but built on blockchain.
You can view the project and learn more about it here.
The core idea was simple:
- Use blockchain for transparency and security
- Use smart contracts to automate ticket purchases
- Reduce fraud and scalping as much as possible
Each ticket would be an NFT. Once purchased, it shows up directly in your MetaMask wallet. Users could hold onto it, trade it, or resell it — all on-chain.
Timeline and Tech Stack #
I worked on both the frontend and backend of the website. Honestly, it’s one of the best-looking websites I’ve ever built, especially under hackathon pressure.
Tech stack:
- Next.js for the frontend
- Cursor IDE (which made development insanely fast)
- Local Truffle setup for blockchain interaction
- Wallet integration using MetaMask
One of my teammates handled the smart contracts, which let me fully focus on the app experience and integration.
Sleep (or Lack of It) and Pinata Integration #
Sleep was… optional.
We ran into an issue with Pinata, specifically related to vector store integration. Luckily, the Pinata team was present at the hackathon and helped us debug the problem.
Special shoutout to Steven from Pinata — super helpful, and also a fellow Linux and Vim user, which instantly earned my respect.
Also, he was using my dream keyboard — the ZSA Voyager. I wish I had one too.
Gemini Integration (Almost There) #
We also planned to integrate the Gemini API for image generation. The idea was to dynamically generate ticket or NFT artwork using AI.
One of my teammates worked on this, but unfortunately, we ran into API issues and couldn’t get it fully working before the deadline. We were close, but hackathon time always wins.
Submission and Presentation #
We submitted Block-a-Tick on Devpost and moved on to presentations.
We ended up presenting to quite a few judges, and the feedback was overwhelmingly positive. One thing that came up repeatedly was how polished and complete the product felt.
The website worked. The flow made sense. And most importantly — it felt deployable right now, not just a demo.
Result #
All the participants were called into an auditorium as the winners were announced. There were multiple tracks, each with a few winners, and the main prize was $1500.
We were confident we’d win something. But as more winners were announced, we realized we were running out of chances. I looked at my friend and we both had the same thought: Alright, we didn’t win. Let’s go home and finally get some sleep.
Then they announced the final and main winner.
It was us.
For a second, we just looked at each other, wondering if we heard that right.
🥇 1st place in the General Track.
It felt incredibly rewarding to see all the late-night debugging, pivots, and last-minute fixes pay off. Definitely one of my favorite hackathon experiences so far.