A hackathon challenge platform using the Ethereum blockchain

The idea was inspired by a challenge created by Nanome Inc for SD Hacks 2017.

HackChain is a hackathon submission portal designed to use the ethereum blockchain. Hackathon challenges and submissions are stored as blocks, and functions provide interfaces to manipulate them. A front-end web-portal provides a visual way to interact with the project. Large file submissions are stored off-chain using IPFS nodes.

I used Solidity to create the smart contract, and I used libraries such as IPFS.js and Web3.js in the front-end to interface with IPFS and blockchain nodes.

Since this was my first time interacting with blockchain technology, everything was very new to me. I had to learn about what "smart contracts" were, and then figure out how to create one using the Solidity language. It was also very difficult for me to figure out how to make the data as useful as possible through the addition of a front-end web portal.