Hack the North 2023 Application

Status: Waitlisted -> Accepted

What do you think is the most important trait for a hacker to have and why? (400 characters)

To answer this question, we have to ask what a hackathon is, according to HTN’s own words: “Discover a community of like-minded hackers, connect with world-class mentors, and build because you love to build.” Because of this, I believe that the most important trait is being communicative. Whether as a hacker you’re there to network, learn, or build, they all rely on the basis of communication.

What is one of your favorite things you’ve built, created, or worked on? Why did you do it and why are you proud of it? (1200 characters

Show us more details about this (any link, like a Google Drive link, GitHub, or Devpost link)

One of my favorite things I have created is my first major project, a Discord bot named Figgy. I was in Gr. 9, the two-week spring break had turned into a 7-month lockdown. Bored out of my mind, playing Fortnite.

Suddenly, my phone buzzed. Bzz! I picked up my phone. It was my friend, Sam. The text read, “Yo Ayush, I made a server. Join it.” He sent me an invite, I obliged and downloaded Discord.

Days passed on the server until I realized that Dyno isn’t a human being; it was a bot! I started asking myself questions: What is a bot? How does it work? What can it do? The only way to answer these questions was to create one. With the help of my friends, I began designing a bot.

We succeeded, we made a bot that allowed us to use nitro emojis without a nitro subscription. This project remains my favorite to this day. It holds sentimental value, reminding me of the good times my friends had during the lockdown. It was a starting point, a gateway that pulled me into the world of programming, serving as a benchmark and reminding me of the freshman in high school I once was, only familiar with using “if” and “else” statements, with my index.js file stretching over a thousand lines.