Update 24-hours-at-hackutd-my-first-hackathon.mdx

Author: sonnynomnom

blogs/2025/24-hours-at-hackutd-my-first-hackathon.mdx

@@ -59,7 +59,9 @@ It was time to start hacking!
 
 Our team ventured around buildings trying to find an open space, which took a while. We settled down on the 4th floor of the Engineering Computer Science South building and started ideating and researching for our project. 💭
 
-We decided to take on the Toyota Financial Services challenge and create [ToyoQuest 🚗](https://devpost.com/software/toyoquest-fdtxsb), a website that helps first-time car owners find their dream car. Soon after, lunch time came! I ate tofu kua gai flat noodles 😋 and they were giving out the cutest t-shirts and trinket dishes out too. 🥹
+We decided to take on the Toyota Financial Services challenge and create [ToyoQuest 🚗](https://devpost.com/software/toyoquest-fdtxsb), a website that helps first-time car owners find their dream car. Soon after, lunch time came! 
+
+I ate tofu kua gai flat noodles 😋 and they were giving out the cutest t-shirts and trinket dishes out too. 🥹
 
 <div style={{ display: "flex", justifyContent: "center", marginBottom: "1.2rem", transform: "scale(.9)" }}>
   <a href="https://devpost.com/software/toyoquest-fdtxsb" style={{ all: "unset" }} target="_blank" and rel="noopener noreferrer"><Button variant="yellow">Check out ToyoQuest</Button></a>
@@ -69,11 +71,11 @@ We decided to take on the Toyota Financial Services challenge and create [ToyoQu
 
 Visited the Codédex booth table! I was super excited to talk to the team in person! 
 
-Sonny and I chatted about writing a blog as part of my prize for winning the [October Portfolio Monthly Challenge](https://www.codedex.io/community/monthly-challenge/rxszczV44NOqXn80BC7Y), so here I am writing about my very first hackathon! ☺️📝
+Sonny and I chatted about writing a blog as part of my prize for winning the [October Portfolio Monthly Challenge](https://www.codedex.io/community/monthly-challenge/rxszczV44NOqXn80BC7Y/winners), so here I am writing about my very first hackathon! ☺️📝
 
 ### 4:40 PM
 
-I attended State Farm’s “AI, APIs, and the Future of Building Fast” workshop and learned how to use JavaScript to build an AI and utilize API for a fullstack project. During this session, our team continued working on our project and created a database of all the Toyota cars and got started designing BuzzFeed style questionnaire pages in Figma.
+I attended State Farm’s “AI, APIs, and the Future of Building Fast” workshop and learned how to use **JavaScript** to build an AI and utilize API for a fullstack project. During this session, our team continued working on our project and created a database of all the Toyota cars and got started designing BuzzFeed style questionnaire pages in Figma.
 
 ### 7:30 PM
 
@@ -91,17 +93,19 @@ The event organizers handed out a midnight snack to keep us fueled! Tiramisu and
 
 ![hackathon day 2](https://i.imgur.com/HOnNUUa.png)
 
-We then went to [League of Legends World’s Watch Party](https://www.youtube.com/live/ADaZLxI3uWg?si=9dXQDI72PaOz_1bw)! About 10 of us were seated in a dark room watching the game play on a large screen and intensely working on projects until 5 AM. I focused on the front end of our website, using TypeScript and Next.js, and every now and then, I peeked over to see my backend teammate frantically running out of Claude AI credits. He even spent $20 just to get Claude to process and format our Toyota Cars CSV file. 🤣
+We then went to [League of Legends World’s Watch Party](https://www.youtube.com/live/ADaZLxI3uWg?si=9dXQDI72PaOz_1bw)! About 10 of us were seated in a dark room watching the game play on a large screen and intensely working on projects until 5 AM. I focused on the front end of our website, using **TypeScript** and **Next.js**, and every now and then, I peeked over to see my backend teammate frantically running out of Claude AI credits. He even spent $20 just to get **Claude** to process and format our Toyota Cars CSV file. 🤣
 
 ### 9:30 AM
 
-Our team was hard at work finishing up our devpost submission, Canva presentation slides, and our actual website itself, which was still missing the main features: using Gemini API to process the user input from the front end and send data to our backend to finalize car selections from a user’s financials and life style choices. 😬 
+Our team was hard at work finishing up our devpost submission, Canva presentation slides, and our actual website itself, which was still missing the main features: using **Gemini API** to process the user input from the front end and send data to our backend to finalize car selections from a user’s financials and life style choices. 😬 
 
 At least we were enjoying puff pastries for breakfast. 
 
 ### 11:30 AM
 
-Mostly everything was done, we just had to link the front end to the back end and figure out how to display results generated for a user... in UNDER 30 MINUTES. We created multiple help tickets with the HackUTD mentors to figure out how to fix our project and submitted our project one minute before the deadline. 😓
+Mostly everything was done, we just had to link the front end to the back end and figure out how to display results generated for a user... in UNDER 30 MINUTES. 
+
+We created multiple help tickets with the HackUTD mentors to figure out how to fix our project and submitted our project one minute before the deadline. 😓
 
 ### 12:00 PM
 
@@ -111,11 +115,13 @@ We winded with a salad for lunch and practiced presenting for the judging panel.
 
 Judging starts. 
 
-Despite our exhaustion, we made sure to deliver a well prepared presentation for the judges. We explained that our app uses a Python webscraper to collect Toyota car trims and then finds the top three Toyota cars based on user selection. Afterwards, I checked out and explored other team’s projects and loved seeing their ideas and creativity!
+Despite our exhaustion, we made sure to deliver a well prepared presentation for the judges. We explained that our app uses a **Python webscraper** to collect Toyota car trims and then finds the top three Toyota cars based on user selection. Afterwards, I checked out and explored other team’s projects and loved seeing their ideas and creativity!
 
 ### 5:00 PM
 
-We moved back to the auditorium to hear closing remarks and most importantly, who won! Our team didn’t place, but it was so cool to see the winning projects. The organizers had one last surprise for us before we left... the cutest embroidered sweatshirts!! 💗
+We moved back to the auditorium to hear closing remarks and most importantly, who won! 
+
+Our team didn’t place, but it was so cool to see the winning projects. The organizers had one last surprise for us before we left... the cutest embroidered sweatshirts!! 💗
 
 ---