Now that the Spark University Hackathon has reached a conclusion, we’re shining a spotlight on the winners of the two challenges that Filecoin sponsored for the event! Last week, we highlighted our first set of winners, whose work focused on applications of Filecoin in storing research and scientific data. In this post, we showcase the work of our second set of winners, whose projects addressed the following prompt:
Build a system or app for the decentralized web that stores data on both IPFS and Filecoin, and demonstrates some convenience aspects of shared features between the two networks such as shared content identifiers (CID).
Third Place
Kazan
The application that snagged our third-place prize is Kazan, a decentralized collaborative music platform! Kazan offers musicians the opportunity to discover tracks, jam on top of them, and publish the result back to the platform for further collaboration. Users of the platform can tag their creations to indicate the elements (such as guitar, drums, or vocals) that each piece contains. Kazan leverages Textile buckets for audio storage and distribution, and the Web Audio API to facilitate in-browser audio mixing.
While still a prototype, Kazan hopes to add many more features, including the ability to record track ownership via Ethereum, support for additional content contributions such as music videos and lyrics, and incentivization mechanisms for content creators!
Second Place
Box&Drop
Our second place prize goes to Box&Drop, a location-based filesharing game for iPhone! Making use of IPFS for content distribution, Box&Drop allows its users to “drop” files to physical locations. Others can subsequently find and open these boxes, with the app tracking how many times each box has been opened and its content downloaded. The app even provides built-in navigation support to help users figure out the fastest way to nearby boxes!
This offers a wide array of fun possibilities, from interactive quests and siteseeing tours to marketing campaigns! Best of all, interoperability with Filecoin helps ensure that the content in these games, and the joy of discovery in stumbling upon them, can be preserved for years to come!
First Place
Código Hub
And finally, the winners of our second challenge: the team behind behind Código Hub!
Código Hub is a decentralized application for open-source firmware distribution and Internet of Things device management. In addition to offering users a dashboard that provides an overview of their devices, Código Hub incentivizes developers to contribute and collaborate on firmware.
The platform offers users the ability to search for and download the firmware source code and binaries they require, and can be used to deploy firmware updates directly to user devices! Users are supported in doing so by various metrics that help them assess the level of trust they should place in another user’s contributions, including user comments on submitted work, the number of downloads a contribution has accrued, and a user’s derived reputation score. Código Hub leverages Filecoin to store contributions, and utilizes IPFS in its distribution layer; CIDs ensure the integrity of the files users download.
If Código Hub users cannot find a piece of firmware they are after, they can also use the platform to offer a bounty, via an Ethereum smart contract, to incentivize developers to upload a firmware contribution that meets their needs.
Código Hub also featured as an overall hackathon finalist! For a summary of the contest and its results, please see this post on Medium, or watch the final pitches and prize-giving ceremony on YouTube!
Once again, congratulations to our winners, and a massive thank-you to the hackathon’s organizers and participants. We continue to be amazed and humbled by the work and ideas put forth by the web3 community, and are happy to be able to support its growth through our sponsorship.
The competition may be over, but opportunities to participate in the Filecoin ecosystem abound! If you have an awesome idea that you’d like to explore, consider applying for a Filecoin Dev Grant!