Ideatron

Ideatron turns Reddit trends into AI-generated hackathon ideas. Powered by Fivetran, Gemini, and MongoDB — it transforms raw discussions into your next big innovation spark.

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Inspiration

Every hackathon begins with a single idea — but finding that spark can be hard. We noticed how Reddit is full of brilliant discussions, yet most of them disappear into the noise. We wanted to build something that could mine collective creativity from communities like r/SideProject and r/ArtificialIntelligence — and turn it into instantly usable hackathon ideas.

What it does

Ideatron is an AI-powered idea engine. It scans discussion platforms (like Reddit) for trending projects and problems, summarizes the patterns with Gemini AI, and generates fresh hackathon-ready ideas — complete with titles, descriptions, and difficulty levels. In short: it’s Fivetran for inspiration.

How we built it

  • Data Extraction: We used Fivetran’s REST API connector to continuously fetch top posts from innovation-rich subreddits.
  • Data Storage: The data is stored and organized in MongoDB Atlas, following a clean three-layer schema — sources, trends, and ideas.
  • AI Generation: Gemini AI API summarizes the trends and creates new project ideas with structured metadata (wow factor, difficulty, domain).
  • Frontend: a futuristic, glassmorphic dashboard powered by Tailwind and Framer Motion animations.
  • Workflow: The entire pipeline is automated — from fetching Reddit data to displaying AI-generated ideas in real time.

Challenges we ran into

  • Fivetran doesn’t have a native Reddit connector, so we had to creatively use the REST API option.
  • Managing API rate limits while syncing live data was tricky.
  • Balancing between “too general” and “too niche” ideas required iterative fine-tuning of Gemini prompts.
  • Integrating multiple tools (Fivetran, Gemini, MongoDB, V0) smoothly within 48 hours tested our full-stack speed.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

  • We turned a raw data feed into a fully functional AI-powered idea generator.
  • Designed a product that genuinely helps hackathon participants and innovators.
  • Built a seamless data-to-insight pipeline without writing a backend from scratch.
  • The UI — clean, futuristic, and alive — captures the spirit of creative discovery.

What we learned

  • How to creatively use Fivetran’s REST API connector to fetch data from unconventional sources.
  • The power of combining data pipelines + AI summarization to create new insights.
  • Prompt design plays a huge role in generating usable, non-repetitive ideas.
  • Quick prototyping tools (like V0) can save huge amounts of time while still producing visually impressive results.

What's next for Ideatron

We plan to:

  • Expand beyond Reddit — include Product Hunt and HackerNews feeds.
  • Add a personalized recommendation system that learns from user interests.
  • Open up an API for other developers to generate ideas programmatically.
  • Create a “Hackathon Mode” that produces ideas matching a challenge theme in real time.

✨ Ideatron — because every great project starts with a spark of inspiration.

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