"We're allowed to use AI right?"
I sent that message in the MHacks 25 Discord server the day before the Hackathon, clueless about competition rules, norms, and just the process. Clearly, I had no idea what to expect. I especially didn't expect that, precisely 24 hours later, I'd be downing RedBulls to power me through the night.
Although I started the competition cluless, I had the fortunte to be on a great team. Sam Tao, Bill Hong, and Caden Bowman were all extremely easy to collaborate with and learn from.
Not only did I enter the competition clueless about the rules, I also wasn't too familiar with common web frameworks. Although I had previous experience building websites, I never built any of a similar scale as our Hackathon project. Additionaly, most of my projects were in plain HTML/CSS/JS. Learning React, Electron.js, Tailwind, etc. on the fly was not only loads of fun, but incredibly rewarding. From the pressure of the Hackathon, I was able to pick up on so many new skills.
From Left to Right: Caden Bowman, Sam Tao, Bill Hong, Dylan Li (me)