HackSprint: All-in-One Hackathon Management Platform

HackSprint is a comprehensive, AI-powered SaaS platform built with Next.js and Firebase to streamline the organization and management of internal college hackathons. It provides a seamless experience for students, judges, and administrators, from registration and team formation to final project judging and results announcement.

✨ Key Features

• Role-Based Portals: Separate, dedicated interfaces for Students, Judges, and Administrators.
• Team Management: Students can easily create new teams or join existing ones with a unique code.
• AI-Powered Assistance:
  • Idea Generation: Stuck for an idea? The AI suggests creative project ideas based on user interests.
  • Code Review: Get instant, AI-powered feedback on submitted GitHub repositories.
  • Project Summaries: AI generates concise summaries of projects to assist judges in their evaluation.
  • Guidance Hub: An AI chatbot to answer questions about hackathons, career paths, and more.
• Real-time Leaderboard: A live, dynamic leaderboard visualizes team scores and rankings as they come in.
• Project Showcase: A gallery to display all submitted projects, celebrating the participants' work.
• Fair & Easy Judging: A dedicated portal for judges to view submissions, score projects against a defined rubric, and view AI-generated summaries.
• Admin Dashboard: Centralized control for admins to manage users, approve registrations, add judges, and post announcements.
• Automated Certificate Generation: Winners can download a verifiable PDF certificate of achievement .

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🚀 Tech Stack

• Framework: Next.js (with App Router)
• Styling: Tailwind CSS & ShadCN UI for componentry.
• AI Integration: Google AI (Gemini) via Genkit
• Database & Auth (Simulated): State management using React Context and localStorage to simulate a Firebase backend.
• Deployment: Ready for Vercel or Firebase App Hosting.

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🛠️ Getting Started

Follow these instructions to get a copy of the project up and running on your local machine for development and testing purposes.

Prerequisites

• Node.js (v18 or newer recommended)
• npm or yarn

Installation

1. Clone the repository:

   git clone https://github.com/PDR-Dhanu/hacksprint_
   cd hacksprint

2. Install dependencies:

   npm install

3. Set up environment variables: Create a .env file in the root of the project and add your Google Gemini API key. You can get a free key from Google AI Studio.

   NEXT_PUBLIC_GEMINI_API_KEY=YOUR_API_KEY_HERE

4. Run the development server:

   npm run dev

The application should now be running at http://localhost:9002.

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📂 Project Structure

The project follows a standard Next.js App Router structure:

/
├── public/               # Static assets
├── src/
│   ├── app/              # Main application routes and pages
│   │   ├── (portals)/    # Route groups for admin, judge, student, etc.
│   │   │   ├── page.tsx
│   │   │   └── _components/
│   │   ├── layout.tsx    # Root layout
│   │   └── page.tsx      # Homepage
│   ├── ai/               # Genkit AI flows and configuration
│   │   ├── flows/
│   │   └── genkit.ts
│   ├── components/       # Shared UI components (layout, ShadCN UI)
│   ├── context/          # React Context for state management
│   ├── hooks/            # Custom React hooks
│   ├── lib/              # Helper functions, constants, types
└── ...                   # Config files (tailwind, next, etc.)

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🤖 AI Integration with Genkit

This project leverages Genkit, a framework for building AI-powered features, to connect to the Gemini API.

• Location: All AI-related logic is located in src/ai/.
• Configuration: The central Genkit configuration is in src/ai/genkit.ts, which initializes the Google AI plugin with the API key from the .env file.
• Flows: Individual AI features (like idea generation or code review) are defined as "flows" in src/ai/flows/. Each flow encapsulates a prompt and the logic for interacting with the Gemini model.
• Server Actions: The frontend communicates with these flows via Next.js Server Actions defined in src/app/actions.ts.

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🚀 Deployment

This application is optimized for deployment on Vercel or Firebase App Hosting.

Deploying with Vercel

1. Push your code to a Git repository (GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket).
2. Import the repository into your Vercel dashboard.
3. Vercel will automatically detect the Next.js framework.
4. Important: Add your NEXT_PUBLIC_GEMINI_API_KEY as an environment variable in the Vercel project settings.
5. Click "Deploy". Vercel will build and deploy your application.

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👨‍💻 Author

This project was developed by Dhanunjay Reddy Palakolanu.

• GitHub: @PDR-Dhanu
• LinkedIn: dhanunjay-reddy-palakolanu-pdr
• X (Twitter): @PDReddyDhanu
• YouTube: @pdreddy