My journey to winning the Aptos Singapore Hackathon — mononok3
How it all started
I was an engineer. Not the kind you might think, not a software engineer, not even an electrical engineer. I studied mechanical engineering at university and ended up working in the construction industry. Throughout almost a decade of my former career, it had nothing to do with programming (unless you count Microsoft Excel VBA), but I’ve always been fascinated with learning different programming languages. I would sneak in time during my boring desk job to learn python, optimize complicated database excel sheets using Excel VBA when no one asked me to but simply because I thought it was fun. Earlier this year, I finally decided to quit my old profession for good, burned all bridges, and try to pursue a career as a developer whole-heartedly.
But it wasn’t easy
Without the traditional learning environment (aka retaking a course at a proper education institution) I was quite directionless. (I thought going through university or a traditional education system for this profession isn’t quite useful, also isn’t too time and cost effective) I began taking Youtube courses, starting with a 32+ hour video on Solidity. After 32+ painful days, I still feel like I know nothing. I couldn’t code independently without revisiting the video. It’s like taking off the training wheels on the without teaching you how to balance on your own. More importantly, I was feeling very lost. There isn’t a specific goal or project to work on.
While I didn’t know what to do with my Solidity at that time, I began exploring other languages, which is when I found Aptos on Twitter, and somehow stumbled upon Overmind. At that point, I didn’t know any Move. But I saw, this website called Overmind is paying people to solve programming puzzles using Aptos Move, that looks fun. And for someone who’s been jobless for several months, that’s quite attractive. And so, I began to try to figure out Move.
My journey with Move & Overmind
I started with the Birthday Bot quest, which was recommended by the Discord community to be the easiest one to start with. But it was not easy at all, at least not for me then. Move is quite different from the other languages I knew, such as Solidity. There’s a mental shift required in learning the language, and so the first part was a struggle. Also, because the language is relatively new, there aren’t many (good) video tutorial resources available. I started getting my hands on any kind of documentation I could find: the Move Book, the Aptos Move library repository, the Move language github page, etc, and just do the quest side by side. Whenever I run into a block or an error code that I didn’t know how to solve, I do what any developer would do: Google (more specifically, Stackoverflow). And ultimately if that still doesn’t work, the Overmind Discord Community is such a helpful place. I got so much help and support there at the very beginning, that greatly motivated me to keep going on. I’ll always remember the feeling of finishing my first quest, so satisfying and addictive that I immediately became a weekly quester.
Solidity is contract centric. Move is resource centric and focused on the ownership and secure MOVEment of these resources.
Weekly questing went on for several weeks. I became more and more fluent in Move, and so I began looking at what I can do with my new learnt skills in Move. I listed my skills on several freelance sites and wait. While waiting, I came across Aptos’ hackathon in Singapore. I was hesitant to sign up for it because I was afraid that I won’t be qualified enough to enter a hackathon yet, and also it was very last minute. I went anyway. And boy it was probably the best decision I made this year.
A Life-Changing Hackathon Experience
On day 1, I knew it was so worth it coming all the way to Singapore for this event. I got to meet so many great minds, like-minded people. It was an eye-opener. I didn’t know much people, so I found myself a team through the organizer’s chat group, and I was really lucky to have found 2 other great teammates, 1 backend (@shachindra92), 1 frontend (@bzclasher), and 1 smart contract (myself). It was the dream team.
Before meeting up, we discussed some ideas to work on during the hackathon. Coincidentally, two of us had a similar idea and that was what we decided upon. We started working on a review platform, where users can write reviews and rate dApps on the Aptos ecosystem. We want the platform to serve as a fair and informative resource, to allow users to DYOR before investing in any DApps. This could help prevent scams and rugpulls, which ultimately contributes to maintaining a healthy and stable ecosystem. Meanwhile, it also serves as a platform to give the dApps more exposure. For my part of the work, we intended to store each review as a distinct NFT that will be minted and transferred to the reviewer’s account. Thanks to having solved several NFT quests on Overmind, it made my work at the hackathon pretty smooth sailing.
At the hackathon, there were several workshops / talks going on throughout each day. There were also Aptos Foundation and/or Aptos Labs engineers and employees on-site to give hackers support, which was really helpful. The Overmind team was also on-site (shout out to TC, Tony and Luke!) and they have been so very helpful to not just my team, but other hackers as well.
There were so many good projects, ideas and teams on-site, which I was really grateful to have met and talked to. In particular, projects involving AI had really sparked my interest, and I made a mental note to study AI related programming once I got home.
Our project ended up winning first place in the infrastructure/public goods track. During the announcement at the after party, my teammate and I just stared at each other for one solid second before the information register. I was thrilled, shocked (because it’s my first ever hackathon and I won?!), grateful, excited and just flooded with emotions. We won a 30k USD grant to kickstart our project. This is a huge step for me, as not only it is a great motivator for me to keep walking down this new path, but it also gives me a slight direction to work on. And of course, our team has set to continue working on the project after the hackathon, and this is just the beginning.
Lastly
I would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge Overmind. It is one of the best programming self-learning platform I’ve seen. The monetary reward based learning mechanism is a great motivator for new comers, the competition for the fastest solver keeps regular questers engaging. I can’t wait for the next quest.
Links
Follow us and our project on Twitter:
Project twitter page: @NetSepio
Team: @mononok31, @Shachindra92, @Bzclasher
Follow Overmind and start your Move journey:
Twitter: @Overmind_xyz
Medium: Overmind
Website: https://overmind.xyz/
