This content originally appeared on DEV Community and was authored by donutsorelse
This is a submission for the World’s Largest Hackathon Writing Challenge: Beyond the Code.
I like to create and code, so I hop on Devpost every so often to see if anything stands out as a fun opportunity. I also like to make my ideas become realities, so when I saw the Bolt contest, I did indeed drop everything.
I always start by skimming the contest brief to see if it stands out as something that fits my interests. And I see what it’s for, a program that can build out a full app instantly with AI. I’ve had a particular project in mind that I’ve been highly interested in building, but it’s a massive undertaking so putting it together required a bit of a perfect storm. Maybe this “Bolt” thing could put it together?
As I look more into what Bolt can do, I start getting excited. Maybe it can put together the idea that’s felt too big to do until now. It’s also no secret that the prizes are massive and would directly fund the startup costs in full, but even the AWS Credits would be massively helpful for what I have in mind.
As I scanned through I remember thinking “wow, this could be a great opportunity for me. It could fund the platform I’ve been envisioning.”
“This is your funding round,” the contest reads. It felt like the perfect storm had hit. As incredibly helpful as a prize would be, even just the head start on the project I’ve been looking to build would be massive. The question asked of “who should drop everything and join?” felt like a clear answer of “Me. I absolutely should”.
The project I’ve had in mind is a streaming platform. The short of it is that it has Enhancements that allow for any video improvement the user has in mind. Some of it could be gimicky like making the video look old-timey, which is fun and all, but the focus in my mind is for genuine improvements to a given video, or to all videos. These can even be applied to the platform itself. Videos and live streams can also be linked to one another, which means that things like react content would benefit the initial creators, for example. I enjoy a song called “Violence” by Blink 182, but I can’t really include it in playlists because it has a long talking-track outro that I don’t want to listen to each time I queue up the playlist. A linked video and/or a video enhancement that removes that outro for that video would allow the artist to get all the views and credit they deserve while making the experience better. I initially thought of the idea awhile back, and have only thought of more and more reasons why these things would be a massive improvement and why I should make this project happen. I’ll dive deeper into what all I’m looking to build in the “After the Hack” writeup, but “A Better YouTube” is a bit of an oversimplification. The point that matters here is that I’m not delusional enough to think this is anything but an absolutely massive undertaking.
So, I immediately got to work. I registered a new Bolt.new account and did some iterating to not only get a version one of the platform, but a version one of the enhancement suite.
I really liked the aesthetic it put together and it laid out a solid foundation, which was quite helpful in that it also chose which technologies to use on a number of points. I had been researching and debating what to use, so this helped reallocate some brainspace.
I discovered and began this journey just slightly past the halfway point of when the contest began, so I was a bit behind the curve. Still, at this point, I was feeling good. There was clearly a lot to do still, where the proof of concept that was made featured a lot of placeholders that needed made real, but a lot of code had now been willed into existence and the plausibility of building this thing felt more real than ever.
So, naturally, things began getting crazy. Granted, I watch my 2 kids full time, so crazy is the baseline. But, partly due to that fact, I find myself behind on doing dishes if I only run the dishwasher once a day. Day 2 of working on this, it broke. The todo list on house projects and repairs is always like a hydra, creating more than is fixed, but for a big crunch time sprint for a major endeavor like this, most can wait. Not the dishwasher. Never the dishwasher.
Detailing that adventure would be more than a little underwhelming, but, especially since my windows of focused effort are so few and far between, I definitely lost some much needed time to diagnosing, repairs, and hand washing.
Then comes the part that probably caught your eye in the first place – Day 5 of this journey. We moved to our house 1 year ago, and it has a comical amount of wisteria. While it’s going to realistically take a long time with dedicated effort, I make a point to cut all the massive roots and vines to start the process of killing it off. So, I had a moment where I could safely chainsaw and revved it up. To reach the large wisteria vines I had in sight, I began shredding all the wisteria that covered the ground in my path. It’s useful anyway, scares away snakes, and paves a path. As I approached the base of the tree where the massive wisteria resided, I began to feel what felt like hot sparks on me. Even in writing this, the mirror neurons in my mind are recreating the feeling. I went to immediately turn off the chainsaw and saw a wasp hovering and then charge me. I dropped the chainsaw and sprinted to the other side of the yard. In finding that they were still actively chasing me, and that many of them had glued themselves to my person, I bolted (pun not intended) for the screened in porch and slammed the door shut. I squished all the ones that were still on me and went inside.-
Even for those who aren’t allergic (who knows if I am – the first time you’re stung your body doesn’t really react that way yet), it’s still venom directly injected into your body and it can be really bad. It turns out the best thing to do is to take Benadryl, which is the exact same stuff as Zzzquil. That’s to say, I was an absolute potato that day and, with my sleep schedule absolutely demolished and continuing to take Benadryl, it continued being a disaster.
Now a zombie and fully committed to completing this massive endeavor with only a week remaining, I worked relentlessly any moment I was allowed to make the dream real – all while feeling like the world was a dream. What I got done by the buzzer I was very happy with. There’s a lot still to do, but so much of it works that I’m pretty thrilled.
Since this time, a couple whole weeks ago, a tropical storm sat on our house, wrecked our roof, and I had the honor and privilege of bailing out our basement with a bucket while listening to the They Might Be Giants album “Flood” with my 5 year old… a few days later a massive tree slammed into our driveway and knocked out our power lines. It’d sound made up if I didn’t have video proof, which I look forward to consolidating into what I hope will be a moment of tragedy + time = comedy. It felt fairly perfect though. The goal with this project is to create the next great video platform of our time, and doing so between rounds of chainsawing a massive tree off my pavement or insurance battles just feels like I’m living the story as it’s unfolding. If this is how it is while I’m building it at its most nascent stage, and it’s still progressing this well – maybe there’s something here. I’ll be largely away from home for the remainder of the month, but still aim to have a release to launch after the Bolt contest finishes that polishes up some of the core functionality.
Hopefully you enjoyed this summation of the wild ride, and hopefully you get an opportunity to check out what I hope will be the N3XT great thing.
This content originally appeared on DEV Community and was authored by donutsorelse