DEV Community: Dhruv Mehta

Hackathon Winning 101: Insider Tips from a Seasoned Participant

Dhruv Mehta — Mon, 01 Jul 2024 16:20:15 +0000

Now before we begin, you might ask: Who am I? Who is this guy giving us advice? How credible is this source?

To answer these questions: I am an avid hackathon participant who began my tech journey by developing projects specifically for hackathons. All my coding skills have been honed through these intense competitions, leading me to win several national-level hackathons such as HackOn 2020, HackJaipur 2020, ETHIndia'22, and Aptos Winter School'23. Additionally, I have served as a judge in a couple of hackathons, giving me a decent understanding of the judging criteria and the factors that distinguish winning projects. Further, I've also been around many friends who are serial hackathon participants and winners. This article is an amalgamation of my own experiences and the insights I've gained from observing others.

Note - I won't repeat the obvious advice you've likely encountered on YouTube or other blogs. Instead, I'll share 5 secret ingredients and sauces that will definitely help you in cooking and winning your next hackathon 😉

1. How to Come Up with an Idea?

Don't build a project - build a product and solve a problem. The key to success lies in shifting your perspective from building a mere project to developing a product that solves a real-world problem. Think of it as creating an app or website you would want to use yourself or one that you believe others would find valuable. This approach ensures that your project is not only practical but also innovative.

2. What to Do with That Idea?

Once you have an idea, thoroughly analyze and refine it. Be 100% clear about its purpose and scope. If possible, support your idea with research materials and market data. This not only validates your concept but also demonstrates to the judges that you have considered its feasibility and potential impact. Additionally, consider the future use cases of your idea enabling you to leave it with a bigger ‘what lies ahead’ for your project. This shows that you envision it as a scalable solution.

3. Tackling Existing Ideas

Don’t be discouraged if your idea already exists in the market. There’s nothing wrong with reinventing the wheel—what matters is how you do it differently. Add unique features or improvements to set your project apart from existing solutions. This innovative twist can make a significant difference in how your project is perceived during the hackathon.

4. What to Actually Build?

Always aim to create a working prototype. Whether it’s an app or a website, ensure it demonstrates the core functionality of your idea. A tangible, functioning model greatly enhances your chances of winning. Remember the saying, “Jo dikhta hai, wohi bikta hai” or “Sell the sizzle, not the steak.” A prototype that users and judges can interact with will make a lasting impression.

5. How to Present?

Presentation is crucial. Provide detailed information about your project, including the development process, technologies used, workflow, and the rationale behind your idea. A well-crafted, concise README file that clearly explains your project is essential. It should be easy to read and understand, highlighting the key aspects and unique features of your project.

Lastly, I am also a participant like you folks, so I will keep on updating and adding to this article with more of my observations. Till then, good luck!

~ Dhruv Mehta, n&w s5

Native vs Cross Platform

Dhruv Mehta — Sun, 29 Aug 2021 19:12:57 +0000

What should you choose? Or What should you consider while mobile app development? What should you consider for developing your apps? Native or Cross Platform?

Well let's get straight to the point for which you have come here. 👉

I will be giving a very diplomatic answer to start off with, that both the platforms or development techniques are equally good and important. Both have their own pros and cons about which I will be discussing in the article further. I will be giving you a brief about both the platforms and then leave it to you to decide which app development method suits you best whether it is for learning perspective or job perspective.

📱 Native :

As the name suggests itself, Native App development is the native or we can say the traditional way of developing apps. It is based on the native operating system of the device on which the app is going to run. For example - for iOS/iPhone there is the programming language called objective-C and swift on the other hand for Android there is the programming language called Java and Kotlin.

Pros of Native App Development -

All the Native apps use the same programming language as their operating system so they perform better, have faster performance and are very stable.
If there is a use-case where you need to squeeze out all the particular special features of an operating system then you need to develop it on Native, because Native provides the option to fully utilize all the capabilities of that particular operating system through your app.
Researching your app audience and building according to it enhances the user experience of the app. If the majority of your app audience is using Android smartphones then making it natively using Android Studio with Java and Kotlin makes a whole lot more sense rather than creating it on a Cross Platform framework.

Side Note - These native frameworks are directly supported by the operating systems teams with the likes of Apple and Google, so they are mostly bug-free and get more functionalities.

Cons of Native App Development -

The biggest con of Native App Development is the cost ( when talking on a bigger business scale ). The cost of creating an App natively once for iOS and once for Android is very high and clearly not a suitable option.
Moreover the development time also increases when we develop native apps, because there are so many new features and updates to try and include in the app.

👾 Cross Platform :

As the name suggests cross platform means a framework capable enough to create an app which runs on multiple platforms that could be Android, iOS, Windows etc. The entire codebase of the app remains the same despite the change in the platform. Popular cross platform frameworks include - Flutter, Xamarin, React Native, Ionic etc.

Pros of Cross Platform App Development -

The biggest con of the Native App Development is the time constraint and the cost of updation, which inversely is the biggest pro of Cross Platform. The cost of updating the app and putting in more features at the same time for multiple platforms is very minimal.
As there is a single codebase for the entire application therefore the development time of these apps are faster and require only few people to work on it. This advantage makes it more suitable for big companies which are looking to enhance their business quickly across multiple mobile platforms.
If there is a use case where the app is on a limited budget and the complexity of the app is not very high then Cross Platform is the way to go.

Cons of Cross Platform App Development -

The biggest con of Cross Platform is the User Experience. Cross Platform tools currently provide a moderate to average user experience because they are only able to replicate some basic functionalities and User Interface of the Native thing.
Further keeping in mind which functionality or feature runs on which platform and which does not is a tedious task, this leads to harder implementation of functions and sometimes sluggish performances.
In a use-case scenario where the app is complex and requires various features of the operating system to work then it is often better to use the Native rather than the Cross Platform.

Side Note - In the current state of affairs the apps made by Cross Platform frameworks have a buggy experience and may have some less features in it, but with increase in technological developments and updation in tools this will be resolved.
Taking Flutter for example which is backed up by Google, it is constantly getting feature updates every month making it a first choice while developing apps.

My Verdict - 👇

Personally speaking I would choose Cross Platform!

Yes you read it right Cross Platform it is and the reason why I choose Cross Platform over Native is because it provides you with better options and opportunities. Let me explain it to you, we are not living in 2017’s where it was a thing of discussion to choose between Native and Cross Platform. Most of the companies and app developers are going towards Cross Platform because we have got many enhancements in the tech industry and updated cross platform development tools, which are doing better than some of the native platforms tools. The companies nowadays if not demand but they do expect you to know how to work on Cross Platforms tools and sooner or later they will demand it too.

In my personal opinion Cross Platform is the next big thing and it will be one the biggest paradigm shifts in the Mobile app development industry.

Do let me know what you people think by commenting down below and correcting me if I am wrong somewhere. 😇

NOTE - This article was originally written for the official magazine for DSC VIT Bhopal, "DSCZine".

Native vs Cross Platform. By: Dhruv Android Team Member | by DSC Magazine Editor 1 | DSCVITBhopal | Medium

DSC Magazine Editor 1 ・ Jun 6, 2021 ・
Medium

Host your Unity Games online for free using GitHub

Dhruv Mehta — Fri, 12 Mar 2021 22:33:06 +0000

Did you know that you can actually host your Unity games on GitHub using GitHub Pages ❓ ❓

And if you want to know how, then continue reading this article... 👉

But before we get started let me tell you the prerequisites for hosting your games:

Unity WebGL Build

GitHub account for GitHub Pages (yes we will be hosting the game using GitHub pages)

So what is WebGL ? 💡

Unity’s WebGL build allows you to render 2D and 3D graphics in a web browser without the need for additional tools or plug-ins. When you publish a WebGL build, Unity builds a HTML5/Javascript program.

🎮 Building a Unity game into WebGL form :

Step 1 - In your Unity Game Engine (when you are ready with your game) : Click on File > Build Settings

Step 2- In the Build Settings -

Add all your game scenes.
In the platform section: Choose WebGL > Switch Platform (this step is necessary when you are using WebGL for the first time) It will take sometime to convert your game's platform.
After this Click on > Player Settings... and do the necessary changes for your game like - Product Name, Game's Resolution, adding/removing Splash Screen etc.
Click > Build and you are good to go. It will ask you where to put your game files and create a "WebGL Build folder" for you.

Step 3- It will create some folders and files in your "WebGL Build folder" which will have some folders like Build, Template Data and index.html file (as shown in image below)

What are GitHub Pages? 💡

GitHub Pages is a static site hosting service that takes HTML, CSS, and JavaScript files straight from a repository on GitHub, optionally runs the files through a build process, and publishes a website.

💻 Hosting the game using GitHub Pages:

Step 1 - Sign in into your GitHub account > Create a new repository > Add all your files from the "WebGL Build folder" to this repository (as shown in the image below)

Step 2 - Now Click on Settings > Go to the bottom of the page where you can see "GitHub Pages"

Step 3 - Now you need to provide a source to GitHub for hosting your game as a GitHub Page. To do so, below Source Click on None > Choose "main" branch (the branch where you have committed your files).

Step 4 - After this Click > Save and you are done! You will get a message that your site is published and you will get the URL of it as well (as shown in the below image).

So there you have it !! An easy way to host your Unity based games on the web for free, for you and your friends to play. This option opens to many possibilities which you can try like - making your games more accessible, testing your games before the final release, adding them to your online portfolio etc.

Lastly if you guys liked my article then do react to it. And in the discussions down below do add the URLs of your hosted games.

Thank You for reading! 😄

Some important links :

Learn more about Unity WebGL

Learn more about GitHub Pages

My GitHub repository which I used in this article

My hosted game for your reference

How to update your forked repository on GitHub?

Dhruv Mehta — Tue, 06 Oct 2020 22:37:11 +0000

At times there is a need to update your forked repository with the recent commits which happened on the main repository, and to update it we generally use git bash & console but what if I tell you that there is a very simple way of doing this?

And the way is to directly update your fork on Github's website on the forked repository page.

Most of you who are an avid git and github user might already know about this small trick but those who don't know about this or want to learn about it do give it a read 👉

Steps to Update a Fork in Github :

Step-1 : Go to your forked repository on GitHub.

Step-2 : Now you must be seeing a white label like this saying - 'this branch is behind commits' with a 'pull requests' button. Click on that "Pull request" button on the right.

Step-3 : Now you must be seeing a page saying 'There isn't anything to compare' this happens because what GitHub does is, it compares your repository (head fork) with the main repository (base fork) and as you have not made any commits or changes therefore it shows nothing.
But now you can also see 'switching the base' link. So click on “switching the base” link.
Now what it will do is, it will switch both the things that are, change your fork to the base, and the original to the head fork.

Step-4 : After applying the above steps now you will observe that there are a lot of commits and changes. You can also see that the "Create Pull request" button is active . Click on “Create Pull Request” button, give your pull request a name, Click “Send Pull Request”. You have successfully sent a PR to your own forked repository.

Step-5 : Now in your forked repository you will spot a pull request. Click “Merge Pull Request” and Click “Confirm Merge”.

So there you have it the easiest way to update/sync your forked repository directly on GitHub by just sending a pull request. I hope you learnt something from this today.

Google Profile Card : Add me to Search

Dhruv Mehta — Wed, 12 Aug 2020 16:08:12 +0000

Google Profile Cards ⭐ :

"A new way to showcase yourself in the online world by a normal Google Search."

Recently google lanuched its new feature of "peoples card" which let users like us to create a virtual profile card where users can highlight their existing websites or social media profiles to public their identity on the web.

This will pop-up as a search result when you will do a normal Google Mobile Search of your name.

Important Things 💡 :

This is only a testing feature for now which is currently only available in India.
The new people cards feature is only for mobile users. This means that you need to log in to your Google Account on your mobile device to create your public profile.
Each individual with a specific Google account can only create a single people's card and has to have authenticated their account with a phone number before they can create the card.

Make your own People's-Card 👐 :

Its very simple to set up your own profile card. Just follow the below 4 steps to get started -

On your mobile device sign into your Google Account and search for “add me to search” on your Google App.
You will see something like above ☝️ Then click on the "Get Started".
After this Google will offer you a form to fill your details. The only mandatory fields for now are name, occupation, location, and an “about” bio. Apart from this you can also add your education, work, other social media handles and even your email and phone number.
Lastly just click on preview and then save. So there you go - your very own Goole Profile Card is ready.

Things to remember ❗ :

This is a testing feature so the system isn't very efficient but still works right now. You might not be able to see your card instantly appear on search results but it will come eventually.
Further there is also a big potential of online abuse and spam here because you are giving your personal details to appear on a search result. So beware of what information you are filling in the details form.