EDC Auction System
A live auction room where team leaders bid against each other for the very problem their team will battle all day.
Context
Founders' Pit is an EDC event where teams register and submit a PPT proposing a business solution to one of the problem statements set by the Entrepreneurship Development Cell. Shortlisted teams then compete on event day, which opens with a live auction: teams bid for the problem statement they want to solve — easier problems carry a higher base price, harder ones a lower base price — and then spend the full day solving it through a series of tasks. Judging weighs several criteria, including how much a team spent at the auction, which turns the opening bid into a strategic decision that shapes the whole day.
Role & scope
Team project, built while I was a member. I owned and built the complete backend end-to-end.
Problem
The society needed to run the event's opening auction live, in the room — letting shortlisted teams bid in real time for the problem statement they wanted to take on, with every bid and every team's spend tracked accurately as it happened. A spreadsheet couldn't do it; the moment had to feel like an auction.
Solution
A live-bidding auction module built into the EDC Event Portal, where each team leader joins the bidding room and places bids on problem statements on behalf of their team, while the system tracks every bid and each team's running spend. Rather than reaching for WebSockets, the live experience runs on optimised REST/CRUD APIs with database-managed state — a deliberate choice, tuned for near-real-time responsiveness while keeping every bid consistent and auditable.
Stack
- Node.js
- Prisma
- PostgreSQL
Outcome
Ran live at Founders' Pit 2026 with 30 teams bidding in real time, and worked flawlessly on the day.
Recognised by faculty coordinators.
Links
- Auction system — Private to the society