How the Onix Team Participated in the Hackathon by Learning Pool

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.

About the Hackathon

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:

 

1. Sharpen your skills: Hackathons are a great way to learn new technologies and tools. You'll get to work with others who have different skill sets, and you can learn from their experiences. The intense timeframe of a hackathon also encourages developers to be efficient and creative, which can help them sharpen their skills.
2. Build your portfolio: By participating in hackathons, you can build your portfolio with new and innovative projects that showcase your skills and creativity. This can be an excellent way to demonstrate your abilities to potential employers or clients.
3. Network with other developers: Hackathons provide a unique opportunity to connect with other developers and professionals in the industry. You can meet new people, learn from their experiences, and explore new job opportunities.
4. Solve real-world problems: Many hackathons focus on solving real-world problems, which can motivate developers who want to create something that can have a positive impact. By participating in hackathons, developers can use their skills to create solutions that address social, economic, and environmental challenges.
5. Have fun: Hackathons are an exciting and fun way to work on challenging projects with a team. Hackathons' intense and collaborative nature can be exhilarating and rewarding, and you can leave the event with a sense of accomplishment and pride.

 

The Ideas the Onix Team Came Up With on Hackathon

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:

 

Login as another user (mimic mode) 

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.

 

• Lack of permissions
• Inconsistent behavior 
• Help with settings 
• Troubleshooting

 

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. 

 

Implementing Lighthouse Tool

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:

 

1. Performance optimization: Lighthouse generates a report that helps developers identify issues impacting the loading speed of their web page. It provides actionable suggestions for improving the website's performance, such as optimizing images, reducing the size of CSS and JavaScript files, and eliminating render-blocking resources.
2. Accessibility improvements: Lighthouse helps developers ensure their website is accessible to people with disabilities. It checks the web page against accessibility guidelines. It provides a report with actionable suggestions on improving accessibility, such as adding alt tags to images, improving keyboard navigation, and using semantic HTML.
3. Best practices: Lighthouse checks the web page against best practices for web development and provides suggestions on improving the code quality. It suggests best practices for HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, such as avoiding unused CSS, using proper heading hierarchy, and reducing JavaScript execution time.
4. SEO optimization: Lighthouse helps developers to optimize their web pages for search engines. It provides suggestions on how to improve the content and structure of the web page, such as using meta tags, adding structured data, and improving the page load speed.

 

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.

 

Create Query builder using ChatGPT 

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. 

 

Wrapping up

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.