Building Raptor: A Hackathon Judging Platform That Checks Its Own Homework

Description and use

Raptor is a self‑hosted hackathon platform that verifies GitHub submissions, normalizes judge scores, and provides transparent leaderboards.

Problem

Hackathon platforms often trust submission data without verification, risking unfair judging and lack of auditability.

Outcome

Raptor enforces end‑to‑end verification, transparent scoring, and platform‑wide leaderboards while remaining fully self‑hosted with zero cloud dependencies.

Workflow

• Register and form a team
• Submit project via GitHub link
• Automated verification of commit window and repo visibility
• Flagged submissions routed to organizer review
• Assign projects to judges
• Judges score using rubric, bonus, and feedback
• Normalize scores per judge profile
• Publish results and issue certificates
• Update platform‑wide leaderboard

Evidence

Every submitted project gets checked against its own GitHub commit history before a judge ever opens it.

Source

The network isolation is the important part. postgres and redis sit on a data‑only network with zero exposed ports to the outside world.

Source

Normalization clearly helps. Effect shrinks, sample size matters more.

Source