Inspiration
We had multiple inspirations for creating Discotheque. Multiple members of our team have fond memories of virtual music festivals, silent discos, and other ways of enjoying music or other audio over the internet in a more immersive experience. In addition, Sumedh is a DJ with experience performing for thousands back at Georgia Tech, so this space seemed like a fun project to do.
What it does
Currently, it allows a user to log in using Google OAuth and either stream music from their computer to create a channel or listen to ongoing streams.
How we built it
We used React, with Tailwind CSS, React Bootstrap, and Twilio's Paste component library for the frontend, Firebase for user data and authentication, Twilio's Live API for the streaming, and Twilio's Serverless functions for hosting and backend. We also attempted to include the Spotify API in our application, but due to time constraints, we ended up not including this in the final application.
Challenges we ran into
This was the first ever hackathon for half of our team, so there was a very rapid learning curve for most of the team, but I believe we were all able to learn new skills and utilize our abilities to the fullest in order to develop a successful MVP! We also struggled immensely with the Twilio Live API since it's newer and we had no experience with it before this hackathon, but we are proud of how we were able to overcome our struggles to deliver an audio application!
What we learned
We learned how to use Twilio's Live API, Serverless hosting, and Paste component library, the Spotify API, and brushed up on our React and Firebase Auth abilities. We also learned how to persevere through seemingly insurmountable blockers.
What's next for Discotheque
If we had more time, we wanted to work on some gamification (using Firebase and potentially some blockchain) and interactive/social features such as song requests and DJ scores. If we were to continue this, we would try to also replace the microphone input with computer audio input to have a cleaner audio mix. We would also try to ensure the legality of our service by enabling plagiarism/copyright checking and encouraging DJs to only stream music they have the rights to (or copyright-free music) similar to Twitch's recent approach. We would also like to enable DJs to play music directly from their Spotify accounts to ensure the good availability of good quality music.
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