AI Hackathon Experience: The Era of True One-Person Teams

▍1. Competition Theme and Time Challenge ⏱️

I recently participated in a hackathon hosted by Lovable, an AI website building tool.

This hackathon happened to be held just before Christmas, and the organizers encouraged participants to incorporate holiday elements into their projects.

I set myself a short sprint goal - no more than one working day - to build a Christmas-themed website from scratch.

In the past, hackathons typically involved team formation (designers, engineers, planners, etc.), but this time it was just me. From planning and website development to visual design, I had to handle everything myself.

This let me experience the comprehensive challenge of juggling various roles and tasks within a tight timeframe.

But it also showed me several things:

• One person equals a team in the AI era: One person can match a whole team from the past. You handle coordination, and AI is your most obedient teammate.
• Execution speed is incredibly fast: Adding a new feature or writing content takes just a few minutes at most. In the past, that time might have just been spent opening the tools.
• Integration ability is crucial: Having many powerful AI teammates doesn't guarantee good results. You need to be able to coordinate and leverage everyone's abilities and outputs.

▍2. Feature Design and Implementation 🛠️

I designed two main features for this project:

First: AI-Assisted Gift Selection 🎁

Through a questionnaire I set up in advance, after users input their answers, the system connects to Perplexity's AI API to provide three gift recommendations.

Second: Customized Cards 💌

Users can input the recipient's name, age, and blessing content, then ChatGPT generates a blessing letter with a downloadable letter image (handwritten text + stationery).

What's special is that I also integrated ElevenLabs' voice conversion feature, allowing the written content to be read aloud in an elderly male voice similar to "Santa Claus." At the same time, an email is sent (via Resend service) so users can save the audio and image files.

Watching the features come to life was truly satisfying.

Of course, the integration process still encountered many problems and learning opportunities:

• Ask AI when in trouble: Confusing responses, errors, being stuck without ideas - throw them all to AI. AI doesn't mind trouble and won't get angry. You don't need to be shy or afraid of asking dumb questions. Every question is a learning opportunity. AI is a great helper and teacher.
• Understand rules and inventory resources: Why did I have this website tool plan? Because I knew beforehand that these features could be integrated. I confirmed these technologies were available. My job was to package these technologies. The rules mentioned Christmas, so I could approach ideation from that angle.

AI tools aren't yet "omnipotent," so when you propose something they can't do, you'll still easily encounter problems and get stuck.

▍3. Takeaways and Reflections 💡

Although I didn't win in the end, I discovered that in the AI era, one person can truly build a complete product from scratch quickly.

Throughout the process, I gained some observations and reflections:

The Customization Era

In the foreseeable future, I might not need to compare tools one by one to find the best one. Instead, I can ask AI to customize one based on my needs. Of course, this also means "knowing what you want" is very important.

AI Transforms Time Quality

I embrace AI because "my life time is limited." I simply don't have time to learn so many things, some of which I might not even have talent for.

But AI showed me this possibility - seeing things I never dared to imagine in an extremely short time. I've tried writing Figma Plugins myself, building entire websites, learning Unity to make games, etc., all of which let me see results in very short periods.

Aesthetics and Experience Matter More Than I Thought

When technology is no longer the problem, what matters might be aesthetics and experience. From the first impression a product gives, to the user experience, to those seemingly useless but interesting easter eggs - all become more important.

In this experience, I see more possibilities.

As long as you have clear ideas and coordination abilities, plus flexible use of AI tools, you can accomplish things that seemed impossible in the past within limited time and resources.