Hackathons are all about speed – rapidly planning, designing, and implementing an MVP (Minimum Viable Product) that wows judges and shows off your skills. Whether you’re participating in your very first hackathon, or you’re a seasoned pro who’s built many projects, having a API toolkit for hackathons to get yourself up and hacking quickly is a gamechanger.
APIs are an invaluable part of that toolkit. They can save you time by handling common boilerplate procedures like user auth or image processing, provide niche information like stock market data, and even handle machine learning and AI processes.
In this article, we’ll take a look at some ways you can dominate the competition by integrating APILayer APIs into your next hackathon project.
Table of Contents
Key Takeaways
- APIs are an invaluable part of your hackathon toolkit, and can open up many avenues for project exploration, as well as saving you time by handling routine boilerplate.
- Using APIs isn’t cheating! APIs are used by developers in their day-to-day jobs all the time, from companies as big as Facebook, to scrappy startups.
What is an API?
API stands for Application Programming Interface, and it’s just the name given to the point at which two pieces of software interact. That’s it! Technically, if you’ve ever written a code module that talks to a separate code module, you’ve built an API.
These days, the term API has mostly come to define a specific type of web resource in which a set of REST endpoints are exposed to the network, giving outside users access to the data or software at those endpoints.
For example, an image processing API might expose an endpoint that allows you to send a JPG and receive back a resized version of that JPG. A stock market API exposes endpoints that allow you to pull up-to-the-minute information about stocks.
Why should I use APIs?
APIs give you access to data you might not otherwise have, or functionality you would otherwise have to build yourself. In a hackathon situation, it doesn’t make sense to spend four hours building your own image resizer when you could send a single network request to an image processing API and get a resized image in seconds.
Using APIs to take care of tasks for you shows the judges that you know how to take advantage of the web’s available resources, and how to prioritize your time so you’re working on the more interesting aspects of your project, rather than reinventing the wheel.
Why APILayer is Your Ultimate API Toolkit for Hackathons
While there are lots of APIs available on the web, not every API is created equal (and they aren’t always easy to find.) An API marketplace gives you access to a suite of APIs that get you quickly up and running in a time-crunch.
APILayer is exactly that: a hub of well-documented, reliable APIs that handle everything from email validation to web scraping, to Natural Language Processing. The documentation and authentication process is consistent across all APILayer APIs, making it easy to plug them into your project, and the hub strives for 100% uptime across all APIs. Each API has a free tier allowing up to 100 requests per month, making them perfect for quickly prototyping hackathon projects.
Enhancing Collaboration with Team-Oriented APIs
Effective teamwork is crucial during hackathons, and an API toolkit for hackathons can significantly streamline collaboration. APIs like Slack for communication, Trello for task management, and GitHub for version control enable seamless coordination among team members. By integrating these tools into your workflow, you can ensure that all team members are aligned, tasks are tracked, and code is managed efficiently. This integration fosters a collaborative environment, allowing teams to focus more on innovation and less on logistical challenges.
Ensure Scalable Performance with the API Toolkit for Hackathons
Performance matters, especially in hackathons where projects are judged on functionality under pressure. An API toolkit for hackathons should include scalable solutions such as AWS Lambda for serverless computing, Cloudflare for fast content delivery, and MongoDB Atlas for flexible database management. These APIs allow projects to handle spikes in user activity and large data volumes without performance drops. With scalable APIs integrated into your toolkit, developers don’t need to worry about infrastructure limits, and can instead focus on building features that stand out. This makes the project not only technically sound but also impressive in real-world usability, giving teams a competitive edge.
Common API Use Cases and Hackathon Project Types
Let’s break down our APILayer Hackathon toolkit into some meaningful categories, and then we’ll look at some examples from those categories.
General APIs for Any Project Type
These are things you may have to do regardless of the type of project you’re building. For example, you might use the Google OAuth API for user authentication, geolocation to determine a user’s physical location, or a phone number validator to check that a mobile number is correct before sending a text message alert.
- User authentication
- Email validation
- Phone number validation
- Data encryption
- Real-time messaging
- Fraud-detection
- IP & geolocation lookup
Example: Using APILayer’s Numverify to Validate a Mobile Number
Say you’re building a project that requires a user to log in. These days, nearly all mobile applications allow a user to sign up using their mobile number. Before you let a user sign up, however, you need to make sure the number they provide is real and valid. You could use a paid service like Twilio to do this, or you could use the free APILayer Numverify API.
Sign up for a free account
Head to https://numverify.com/signup to create a free account. You’ll get up to 100 requests per month on the free tier – plenty for building out and testing a hackathon project.
Check the docs for your API access key
You’ll find your secret API key on your dashboard. You’ll also find links to documentation, which explains how to format the request for validation. Copy and paste the access key and add it to your project’s environment file.
Make an API request
Validating a number via APILayer’s Numverify is easy. Simply send a GET request to the API’s /validate endpoint, appending your access key and the number to validate:
http://apilayer.net/api/validate
? access_key = YOUR_ACCESS_KEY
& number = 14158586273
The API will send back a JSON object with information about the number, including whether or not the number is valid. Send this request as one step of your login procedure, and use the API’s response to determine whether or not the user should be allowed to proceed with login:
const express = require('express')
const app = express()
const port = 3000
require('dotenv').config()
const BASE_URL = process.env.API_BASE_URL;
const ACCESS_KEY = process.env.API_ACCESS_KEY;
app.get('/sign-up, async (req, res) => {
const number = req.params.number; //from our front end
const response = await fetch(BASE_URL + `?access_key=${ACCESS_KEY}&number=${number}`);
const json = await response.json();
if (json.valid) {
// proceed to next step of login
} else{
// send an error back to the front end
}
})
Here, we’ve set up a /sign-up endpoint on our own backend, which receives the mobile number our user input in our frontend (via some web form input field.) It sends the number to Numverify, receives the Numverify JSON response, and based on whether Numverify thinks the number is valid, allows the user to proceed with signup or not.
FinTech APIs for Finance Projects
FinTech is a rapidly expanding area of the tech market, with many opportunities for budding hackers to build interesting projects. Personal finance apps are a hackathon staple, as are apps that let users track stocks or make trades. Cryptocurrency apps are also becoming increasingly prevalent.
- Personal budgeting app
- Stock market data tracker
- E-commerce payment system
- Cryptocurrency wallet
- Credit score calculator
- Subscription tracker
Example: Using APILayer’s Coinlayer to Track Cryptocurrency Rates
Maybe you want to build a cryptocurrency wallet that displays the current valuation of various currencies and allows users to buy and sell them. The APILayer Coinlayer API delivers real-time exchange rate data for up to 385 cryptocurrencies, which you can use to determine the USD value of a particular coin, or compare the rates between two or more coins.
Sign up and get your access key
Head to https://coinlayer.com/signup/free to sign up for a free account that gives you up to 100 requests per month. Your secret access key is available on your dashboard and in the API’s documentation.
Query the endpoint for live data
The API exposes a /live endpoint that returns a JSON object with up-to-the-minute rate information for every cryptocurrency it currently tracks. Just send a GET request to the endpoint, appending your access key:
https://api.coinlayer.com/live
? access_key = YOUR_ACCESS_KEY
The APILayer Coinlayer API response looks something like this:
The rates of various coins can then be displayed in a bar graph, or plotted on a stock chart using something like React Stock Chart.
Poll the endpoint for continuous updates
To be really useful, your app should deliver real-time data for as long as the user logs in. If there’s a fluctuation in the coin price, a user will want to know. So you can set up polling to repeat the request to the API once every minute, or 30 seconds, to refresh the data. Something like this:
export function startPolling({
url = "https://api.coinlayer.com/live",
interval = 60000, // default: 60 seconds
handleData,
cacheDuration = 30000, // cache for 30 seconds
}) {
let lastFetched = 0;
let cache = null;
let isPolling = true;
let retryDelay = interval;
const poll = async () => {
if (!isPolling) return;
const now = Date.now();
// Use cached data if it's still fresh
if (cache && now - lastFetched < cacheDuration) {
handleData(cache);
scheduleNextPoll();
return;
}
try {
const response = await fetch(url + `?access_key=${process.env.ACCESS_KEY}`);
if (response.status === 429) {
// Too many requests – back off
retryDelay = Math.min(retryDelay * 2, 10 * interval);
console.warn(`Rate limit hit. Retrying in ${retryDelay / 1000}s`);
setTimeout(poll, retryDelay);
return;
}
if (!response.ok) throw new Error(`Error: ${response.status}`);
const data = await response.json();
cache = data;
lastFetched = now;
retryDelay = interval;
handleData(data);
} catch (err) {
console.error("Polling error:", err);
}
scheduleNextPoll();
};
const scheduleNextPoll = () => {
if (!isPolling) return;
setTimeout(poll, retryDelay);
};
// Start polling immediately
poll();
}
Integrate a Second API
One of the best things about APILayer’s APIs is that they are consistently documented and easy to integrate. Let’s say you wanted to build a finance app that showed not only cryptocurrencies, but also stock market data. You can easily add a second API call to APILayer’s Marketstack API for the stock market data:
http://api.marketstack.com/v2/eod/latest?access_key=YOUR_ACCESS_KEY&symbols=AAPL,VZ,NTDOY,DIS,BA
Note: your access key will be different for the two APIs. You need to sign up for the Marketstack API and get a separate API key.
Hitting that endpoint returns a JSON object with up-to-the-minute market data for the stock ticker symbols you provide. You can plus this call into a second polling function, and feed the data into a chart visualizer, just like you did with the crypto data.
{
"pagination": {
"limit": 100,
"offset": 0,
"count": 100,
"total": 9944
},
"data": [
{
"open": 228.46,
"high": 229.52,
"low": 227.3,
"close": 227.79,
"volume": 34025967.0,
"adj_high": 229.52,
"adj_low": 227.3,
"adj_close": 227.79,
"adj_open": 228.46,
"adj_volume": 34025967.0,
"split_factor": 1.0,
"dividend": 0.0,
"name": "Apple Inc",
"exchange_code": "NASDAQ",
"asset_type": "Stock",
"price_currency": "usd",
"symbol": "AAPL",
"exchange": "XNAS",
"date": "2024-09-27T00:00:00+0000"
},
[...]
]
}
Geolocation APIs for Travel Projects
Travel-related apps are another popular category of hackathon project, from ride-sharing to restaurant recommendations, interactive maps, and more. Travel is big business – in fact, companies like easyTaxi got their start as hackathon projects.
Example: Using APILayer’s IPStack to Geolocate Your Users
Before you can build a ride-share app that shows what cars are currently available in your user’s neighborhood, you need to figure out where your user’s neighborhood is. Geolocation – the process of locating a user based on their IP address or other available online data – is a quick and easy way to do this.
Sign up for a free account and get your API key
Go to https://apilayer.com/signup to sign up for a free account and get your API key. Once you have that, you can send a simple request to the IPStack endpoint to receive information about the IP address associated with your users’ device.
Get the user’s IP address
When your user interacts with the frontend of your application, their device’s IP address will be included in any requests they send to your backend. In order to analyze the user’s IP, you just need to pull it off the request object and forward it to APILayer’s IPStack, along with your access key:
app.get('/geolocate-user', async (req, res) => {
const ip = req.ip;
const response = await fetch(BASE_URL + `/${ip}?access_key=${ACCESS_KEY}`);
const json = await response.json();
res.send(json); //return location data to the client so it can be used to draw a map, etc.
})
Use the geolocation data
Now, you have a response object from IPStack containing geographical information about your user:
{
"ip": "134.201.250.155",
"hostname": "134.201.250.155",
"type": "ipv4",
"continent_code": "NA",
"continent_name": "North America",
"country_code": "US",
"country_name": "United States",
"region_code": "CA",
"region_name": "California",
"city": "Los Angeles",
"zip": "90013",
"latitude": 34.0655,
"longitude": -118.2405,
...
}
From here, you can pull off the latitude and longitude values and deliver them to an API like the Google Maps API to add a custom map to your application with your own content (nearby restaurants, for example), centered around your user’s exact location.
Media APIs for Content Curation Projects
Lots of apps these days offer users a curated feed of news or other media articles. The ability to search and filter news based on your preferred topics is crucial for many busy users.
Example: Using APILayer’s Mediastack API to build a curated news feed
The APILayer Mediastack API provides a vast database of up-to-the-minute news articles and blog posts. It supports over 7500 news sources, and is accessible via a secure REST endpoint, as well as filterable by keyword, source and category.
Sign up and get your access key
Head to https://mediastack.com/signup/free to sign up for your free account. As with all the other APILayer APIs, you see your access key and links to documentation on your dashboard. You should notice by now that this consistency makes it very easy to get up and running with an APILayer API once you’ve done it a couple of times.
Send a request for news articles for a certain keyword
To receive back a list of up-to-date news articles, filtered by keyword, all you need to do is append the keyword parameter to your querystring. For example:
https://api.mediastack.com/v1/news?access_key=YOUR_ACCESS_KEY&keywords=dog,cat,horse&countries=us
This will return a list of the most recent articles, across all US media outlets, related to the keywords dog, cat, and horse.
Display the results to your user
From here, it’s easy to render a UI that lets a user scroll through the results. We recommend using a framework like Create React App to quickly spin up a React frontend that lets you send the request, and provides easy plug-and-play UI components and state management. Using Create React App and the APILayer Mediastack API, you can build the following real-time news app in less than an hour:
NLP APIs for Machine Learning Projects
AI has exploded in the tech world, and companies are scrambling to keep up as it begins to dominate every corner of the market. Savvy hackers are incorporating ML and AI into their projects – and there are AIs available to help you do it.
Example: Using APILayer’s Text-to-Emotion API to create a mood journal app
Mental wellness is recognized as hugely important in the modern world, and there are no shortage of apps available to help people manage their mental health. An interactive journaling app that analyzes each entry and keeps a running tab of the user’s mood from day to day could be incredibly beneficial for someone struggling to improve their mental health.
Sign up and get your API access key
Head to https://apilayer.com/signup and then to https://apilayer.com/marketplace/text_to_emotion-api to sign up and subscribe to the service for free. You’ll get up to 100 free requests per month.
Send user text for analysis
Once you’ve captured your user’s text via a text input in your application interface, you can send it to the API for analysis. The APILayer Text-to-Emotion API exposes a single POST endpoint that accepts requests with a body object containing the text you want analyzed, and uses Natural Language Processing to determine the emotion of the provided text based on four parameters: Angry, Fear, Happy, Sad, Surprise.
Example user text: “Dear Diary, today was my birthday party and everyone showed up! I was afraid they wouldn’t because it’s the same day as the Super Bowl, but they all met me at City Diner and we had a lovely meal together.”
const body = Example user text;
const requestOptions = {
method: 'POST',
redirect: 'follow',
headers: {access_key: process.env.ACCESS_KEY},
body: body
};
fetch("https://api.apilayer.com/text_to_emotion", requestOptions)
.then(response => response.text())
.then(result => console.log(result))
.catch(error => console.log('error', error));
Display the result
The response you get back from the API will be a simple JSON object like this:
{
"Angry": 0.0,
"Fear": 0.0,
"Happy": 0.5,
"Sad": 0.0,
"Surprise": 0.5
}
From here, you could use an open source library like emoji-emotion to display an emoji or set of emojis that match the mood of the text, using the mood scores assigned by the API and the name or polarity value of each emoji assigned by the emoji-emotion library:
[
{ name: '100', emoji: '💯', polarity: 3 },
{ name: 'angry', emoji: '😠', polarity: -3 },
{ name: 'anguished', emoji: '😧', polarity: -3 },
{ name: 'astonished', emoji: '😲', polarity: 2 },
{ name: 'black_heart', emoji: '🖤', polarity: 3 }
...
]
By rendering an emoji for each entry in a calendar display, you could give a user a bird’s eye of their overall mental health over time.
Building Your APILayer Hackathon Toolkit: the Sky’s the Limit!
There are hundreds more APIs to explore in the APILayer marketplace, handling tasks as varied as pulling content from YouTube, tracking astronauts in space, getting the day’s top headlines, performing AI-powered search, summarizing transcripts, and editing audio, video and images.
Why not browse the APILayer product list and let your imagination run wild before planning your next hackathon project? There’s no limit to what you can build.
1. What is an API Toolkit for Hackathons?
An API Toolkit for Hackathons is a collection of ready-to-use APIs designed to help developers quickly build, test, and deploy innovative applications during hackathon events. These toolkits provide solutions for common challenges such as data fetching, authentication, real-time updates, and integrations, allowing teams to focus on creating unique features.
2. Why should I use an API Toolkit for Hackathons?
Using an API Toolkit for Hackathons speeds up development by providing pre-built integrations and powerful functionality. Instead of building everything from scratch, developers can focus on solving real problems and designing creative solutions. This increases efficiency, reduces errors, and helps teams submit competitive projects in a limited timeframe.
3. What types of APIs are typically included in an API Toolkit for Hackathons?
An API Toolkit for Hackathons often includes APIs for data access (stock prices, weather, geolocation), user authentication, payment processing, messaging services, and machine learning capabilities. Tools like Marketstack, Fixer, IPstack, and Currencylayer are commonly part of the toolkit to support diverse use cases.
4. Can beginners benefit from an API Toolkit for Hackathons?
Yes, beginners greatly benefit from an API Toolkit for Hackathons. These toolkits simplify complex integrations, offering easy-to-use documentation and pre-built endpoints. Even without advanced coding skills, participants can build functional prototypes by leveraging well-documented APIs, giving them a competitive edge in hackathons.
5. How do APIs in a hackathon toolkit help with scalability and performance?
APIs in a hackathon toolkit often include cloud-based services like serverless computing, real-time data APIs, and managed databases, which automatically scale to handle high traffic. This prevents performance bottlenecks during demos and live testing, ensuring the solution works smoothly even under heavy load, which is critical for hackathon success.
Further Reading: 10 APIs That Will Make Your Hackathon Project Stand Out
