Team HackerBot

User profile
User profile
The command list for Cam Bot
The Cam Bot output
The Cam Bot output

Inspiration

Inspired by Hack Cambridge to add more detail to each Slack account to make the team forming process faster and easier. Allowing you to join or create a team that will give you the top hackathon experience.

What it does

The bot collects information about each user when they join the Slack group, taking information from their Github and Devpost accounts, as well as mentor and team statuses.

By talking to the Cam Bot on the Slack account you can find out more about individual users and get lists of mentors or people looking for a team (which you can filter depending on any language requirements).

When you ask about a specific user the Cam Bot will send you screenshots of the user's Github and Devpost pages, their team and mentor statuses, the languages they know, and links to their Github, Devpost and LinkedIn account. You can ask the bot for a list of mentors or people looking for a team, which you can then explore individually in more detail. You can also update your team status, and view your profile.

How we built it

We are running two Node.js servers that exchange data via a REST API.

One is used to control the chatbot itself and manage chat session data. It uses the Microsoft Bot Framework, which allows us to deploy our bot to several platforms easily - we currently have Slack and Facebook Messenger integration (although the primary use should be via Slack).

Our second server manages user profiles, authentication, user OAuth tokens for 3rd party API integrations, and handles rendering of user image-dashboards - we are using a headless WebKit, PhantomJS, to render screenshots of new users' GitHub and Devpost previews. It later serves these assets for the chatbot controller to use them. Here we also handle team formations and persist user data.

What's next for Team HackerBot

The Cam Bot can already be used in any Slack group, as long as the Slack admin adds Cam Bot to the group. Hope to incorporate Facebook messenger. Extend the use of Team HackerBot for other team building applications, such as tech startups etc.