HackFinder: A Location-Aware Hackathon Discovery Tool for the Developer Community

morty — Sun, 01 Mar 2026 12:00:35 +0000

This is a submission for the DEV Weekend Challenge: Community

The Community

I built HackFinder for the hackathon community — students, indie developers, and small teams who regularly search for hackathons to participate in.

I actively take part in hackathons myself and often help friends find events. One recurring frustration was how scattered everything is:

Listings are spread across multiple platforms
Filtering by location and domain is tedious
Comparing online vs in-person events takes manual effort
Beginners don’t know where to start

HackFinder was built to reduce that friction.

What I Built

HackFinder is a lightweight browser application delivered as a Chrome extension (popup). It organizes hackathons into a fast, searchable interface so users can find Nearby, Online, Far, and Other events in seconds.

Key features

Domain filters (AI/ML, Web3, HealthTech, FinTech, GameDev, etc.)
Geolocation + reverse-geocoding fallback (OpenStreetMap Nominatim)
Distance-based categorization
- Nearby ≤ 200km
- Far ≤ 2000km
2-hour local cache using chrome.storage.local
Preference for official organizer links (resolving MLH event pages when possible)
Lightweight popup UI for quick access

The goal was simplicity, speed, and usefulness.

Demo

Short screen recording (60s):

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1i4shJug1irHr8CR1t1hq6lj02SD_jaoL/view?usp=drive_link

Code

GitHub Repository:

https://github.com/morty649/HackFinder-extension/

Note: The current submission build uses MLH and official APIs only. Support for additional listing sources such as Devpost was prototyped but disabled to respect platform terms and ensure compliance.

How I Built It

The Motivation

This project started from a personal problem. I was manually browsing multiple sites to find hackathons, comparing locations, checking domains, and filtering online vs in-person events. It felt inefficient.

HackFinder was my attempt to streamline that workflow into a single click.

Tech Stack

Vanilla JavaScript
Chrome Extension Manifest V3
Popup-based UI architecture
MLH event parsing & normalization
OpenStreetMap Nominatim for geocoding
Haversine formula for distance calculation
chrome.storage.local for 2-hour caching

AI-Assisted Development

To build efficiently within a weekend, I leveraged AI coding assistants including OpenAI Codex and Claude Code.

I used them to:

Refactor parsing logic
Improve location fallback robustness
Strengthen categorization flow
Debug edge cases in HTML parsing
Optimize caching structure

Rather than generating everything blindly, I used these tools as collaborative coding partners — iterating on architecture, validating logic, and refining user experience.

Engineering Decisions

Focused the submission on MLH and official API-friendly sources to ensure responsible data handling.
Disabled additional listing connectors in the submission build for compliance.
Preferred resolving MLH event pages to official organizer links.
Kept the UI lightweight and framework-free for fast popup rendering.
Designed clear categorization to make discovery intuitive.

Why This Fits the Challenge

HackFinder directly serves a community I belong to — hackathon participants.

It:

Reduces friction in event discovery
Saves time
Makes filtering intuitive
Helps beginners navigate opportunities

Built within a weekend, it demonstrates practical execution, thoughtful design, and a real understanding of the community’s needs.

Feedback, issues, and PRs welcome:

https://github.com/morty649/HackFinder-extension/

DEV Community: morty