A journey from zero to winning - In this blog, I take you through my unforgettable experience participating in my very first hackathon — from forming a team with friends, building “SpeakEase” from scratch in just 24 hours, surviving a sleepless night, to finally securing 3rd prize among tough competition. I share the raw moments, the tough decisions, the lessons we learned the hard way, and tips that can truly help first-time hackers. Whether you’re nervous about joining a hackathon or just curious about how it all works — this story is for you. Let this journey inspire you to take that first step!
On March 28-29, 2025, I participated in Hack Appsters'25, a 24-hour hackathon organized by the Department of Computer Applications at Sri Ramakrishna College of Arts & Science, Coimbatore, in association with LST EduTech. This was my first-ever hackathon, and I was both excited and nervous.
The event kicked off with an introductory session about the college, the organizers, and the hackathon rules. After that, we were directed to the computer lab, where each team was allotted a workspace. The organizers had prepared project ideas in the form of xerox sheets placed face-down on a table. Each team had to pick one randomly, and we ended up with:
Problem Statement:
Create a collaborative language learning platform that connects users with native speakers for practice, providing lessons, quizzes, cultural insights, and gamification elements.
Since this was our first hackathon, we made some mistakes but learned a lot along the way.
We started by researching existing language-learning platforms like Duolingo, Babbel, and HelloTalk. We documented their features and identified gaps where we could improve.
We designed our UI from scratch in Figma, which ended up taking far more time than expected. Later, we realized most teams used templates or AI tools to speed up the process.
Lesson learned: “Don’t reinvent the wheel—take inspiration!”
When the judges came for the initial review, they said:
“This looks like any other language app. Why should I use yours? Think of it as a product you’re selling!”
That hit us hard. We had focused only on basic features and not on uniqueness. So, we quickly brainstormed and added:
Armed with a new sense of purpose, we dove into development. While my friends tackled the frontend, I set up the Flask backend and integrated Firebase. We noticed many other teams using AI tools to generate entire UIs or heavily modifying existing online projects. We, on the other hand, were writing almost everything line by line.
It was harder, but it made the final product feel truly ours.
When the judges returned for the building phase check-in, we were ready. We showed them our progress and, more importantly, pitched our new, unique features. Their impressed expressions told us we were on the right track.
The night was a blur of focused work. Around 1 AM, we took a short break for meditation and snacks. By 3 AM, two of my teammates were exhausted, and I sent them to get some much-needed rest. My friend and I pushed through the rest of the night, coding relentlessly.
By 7 AM, we were about 90% done. But we had made another classic mistake: leaving deployment for the last minute. We ran into a frustrating issue with our Firebase credentials that took us nearly an hour and a half to debug.
Lesson learned: deploy early and often!
At 9 AM, the final judging began. We were ready. I have some prior experience giving project demos, so I focused on “selling” Speak Ease to the judges, not just listing its features. We walked them through our custom logo and design, our live demo, and highlighted what made our solution different. They seemed genuinely impressed.
After breakfast, the award ceremony began. They announced winners from last to first. When they called:
“Third Prize goes to… Tech Spartans!”
We were absolutely thrilled! For a first-time hackathon team, winning ₹10,000 cash prize + certificates was unexpected but amazing!
Even though we made mistakes, the experience was incredible. Winning 3rd place in our first hackathon gave us huge confidence.
If you’re a first-timer, just go for it! Win or lose, you’ll learn a ton.
🔗 You can check out our project live at: Live Demo
💻 Explore our full source code on GitHub: GitHub Repository
We welcome contributions and suggestions! Feel free to open an issue, submit a pull request, or give suggestions if you’d like to improve SpeakEase together.
Project link: https://github.com/VIJAYWHAT/speak-ease