How 1 Line of Code Changed Everything | HackNUthon 5.0 Story | My First Hackathon Experience

We spent 24 hours building this project, and destroyed it in just 1 second. This isn't a success story—it's an autopsy of our fatal error.

⚠️ If you are checking the live link below, please note that the APIs might have been expired (and so has our college life). Now that B.Tech is over and we've secured our jobs, reviving a hackathon backend didn't make the priority list. So, the app is currently a "UI Museum"—looks good, but the engine is off.

however you can see a working demo of the same from the video:
   • EduCrest HackNUthon 5.o Updated Version  

(If you want to see what I build when I DON'T destroy the codebase, check my working Portfolio here: https://krish-gangajaliya.vercel.app/ )

In the chaotic halls of Nirma University, we walked in with zero experience and a single strategy: The Great Indian Jugaad. The goal was simple—survive the 36-hour coding sprint.

But when the clock struck 3 AM, the plan fell apart. A teammate vanished, the backend crashed, and in a moment of desperation, we committed the ultimate engineering sin.

This isn't a success story. This is an autopsy of a disaster.
From hardcoding transcripts to the "Fatal Commit" that leaked our API keys to the world—witness the error that killed our project before it even arrived.

// SYSTEM STATUS:
◾ PROJECT: EduCrest (Legacy Version)
◾ MISSION: Build. Survive. Present.
◾ OUTCOME: Critical Failure (Error 401)

---------------------------------------------------

🎞️ TIMELINE OF EVENTS:
00:00 - Prologue
0:33 - The Title Card
1:19 - What is a hackathon?
2:20 - Assembling The Team
3:30 - Let The Game Begin
4:04 - The Problem Statement
4:29 - Chaos
4:56 - Dev phase 1
6:15 - First Achivement
7:00 - Dev phase 2
8:34 - Unmasked
10:00 - Glimpses of Project
10:54 - Fixed Project
11:09 - Epilogue

---------------------------------------------------

We failed the hackathon, but we fixed the code.

The Saga has just begun.
SUBSCRIBE for Arc 02. The comeback will be personal.

🎵 MUSIC CREDITS:
• Murder In My Mind - Kordhell
• Assimilate - AlexGrohl
• Run for Your Life - The Seige
(Music used for entertainment purposes only. All rights belong to respective owners.)

👋 WHO AM I?
I’m Krish Gangajaliya, a final-year CSE student who did everything “right” academically, and then realised that grades alone don’t define success.

This channel is for students who want more than marks, placements, and the default path.

“Engineering is the degree. Exploration is the career.”

They said, “B.Tech kar lo, life set hai.”
But life isn’t set by following a template. It’s set when you follow curiosity.

Here, I share:

Exam Mastery: How exams actually work (JEE/12th).
Engineering Reality: Honest talks on B.Tech life, internships & hackathons.
Experiments: My journey across tech, teaching, management & sales.

If you want to ace exams and still answer “Aage kya?”, you’re in the right place.

Notebook nikalo, life ka graph plot karte hain. 🚀
Subscribe to join the exploration!


🌐 CONNECT WITH ME:
LinkedIn:   / krish-gangajaliya-802b79266  
Instagram:   / krrish_145  

#hackathon #engineering #cse #experience #storytelling #EngineeringReality #CodingDisaster #Documentary #SystemFailure