In this article, we will explore the Onix team's participation in the Learning Pool Hackathon and their winning strategy for turning their idea into a successful innovation for the project. We will discuss the challenges they faced, the solutions they developed, and the lessons they learned along the way. By examining their journey from idea to innovation, we can gain insights into the hackathon experience and the process of creating innovative solutions in the e-learning industry.
Learning Pool is a UK-based e-learning solutions provider that offers a wide range of online learning courses, content creation tools, and learning management systems (LMS) to businesses and organizations worldwide. Moreover, Learning Pool is our client and old friend. We’re still working on this project and were invited to participate in the hackathon. Learning Pool often organizes events like hackathons to promote innovation and collaboration among its employees and customers.
Hackathons are events that bring together people with different skills to collaborate on building software ideas over a limited period. The hackathon is usually focused on a specific theme, and participants are encouraged to develop innovative solutions that solve real-world problems related to that theme. This year, Learning Pool founders decided to organize a 2-week hackathon for all departments, including our team, to gather valuable insights and ideas for business growth and prosperity.
“Hackathons provide a unique opportunity for developers to collaborate, innovate, and build exciting solutions quickly. The more people gather to brainstorm ideas; the more brilliant solutions may be born.” Oleksii Tarasov,
Here are some reasons why Onix developers participate in hackathons:
Our development team for the Learning Pool project, Yevhenii Filonenko, Vadim Nikolaenko, and Yevhenii Sharpinskii, shared their solutions and impressions from this hackathon. Here are the main concepts that our developers presented for the event:
With this kind of feature, admins could easily switch their view to precisely the same as another user's and help them with their problems.
For this feature to work, the users only need to switch the view mode to mimic the user in one click. This is extremely helpful for the admin to see any inconsistencies from the user's point of view.
Lighthouse is an open-source tool that helps developers improve the quality of web pages by auditing their performance, accessibility, best practices, and SEO. Here are some ways in which Lighthouse tools help developers:
Our idea here was to have Lighthouse check every new page automatically. The tool took every new page to test its performance and generated a short HTML page with the results.
A Query builder is a software tool that allows users to create database queries without writing SQL code. Instead of manually writing SQL statements, users can interact with a graphical user interface to build complex queries by selecting tables, fields, and conditions. When the user sends the incorrect request on UI, we create a button that checks if the request is correct or highlights what to fix. Thus, we intended to send non-valid JSON to the chatbot to detect and fix it. We also worked on the chatbot to give it the correct answers and questions. So, the major work was done on the backend side to check the user request with the help of the chatbot.
Here is our plan for this feature:
The client liked the idea of integrating ChatGPT into the project since it’s really helpful and frees up time for developers to devote to more value-generating tasks.
In conclusion, the Learning Pool Hackathon provided an exciting opportunity for the Onix team to showcase their creativity, teamwork, and problem-solving skills. By leveraging their diverse backgrounds and expertise, the team developed valuable solutions that will be further implemented for the project. The experience highlighted the value of collaboration and the power of technology to drive positive change for the Learning Pool. As the team builds on its success, it will inspire others to participate in hackathons and other innovation challenges that offer the chance to make a real impact.