2026, 1st place · Karlovy Vary Region Open Data Hackathon
ZápadGO
First-place winner at the Karlovy Vary Region Open Data Hackathon: 617 DATA ZÁPAD landmarks and 1,840 transit stops turned into a GPS-verified creature-collecting game and digital tourist passport.
What it is
Built in 24 hours at the University of West Bohemia in Cheb over the regional DATA ZÁPAD catalogue, where it won 1st place. ZápadGO turns 617 cultural, natural and gastronomic landmarks across 20 open-data layers (plus Plzeň Region Wikidata points and 1,840 public-transit stops for car-free trips) into a playable field guide and digital tourist passport.
How it works under the hood
- Anti-cheat on-site check-ins: server-side trust verification checks a 300 m GPS radius, GPS accuracy, realistic travel speed between visits, device clock skew, EXIF metadata and perceptual dHash duplicate-photo detection.
- Deterministic creature spawning: every verified visit hashes sha256(place + photo + player) into a regional creature whose element comes from the landmark's category (earth, water, nature, tech) and rarity scales up to UNESCO legendaries.
- Server-authoritative WebSocket PvP: live turn-based duels over Django Channels and Redis with a 15-second turn clock, deterministic damage resolution and replayable battle logs.
- Two-way value for the region: district and category passport badges for travellers, plus an anonymised /insights dashboard showing footfall beyond overcrowded hotspots.
Stack
- Django 4.2 + DRF + Channels
- PostgreSQL 16 & Redis 7
- Next.js 16 (PWA) & Leaflet
- Docker & Traefik
- dHash + EXIF + GPS anti-cheat
- DATA ZÁPAD (20 layers · 617 POIs)
threads: Python back-ends, Docker, React / Next.js, Computer vision