I spoke with the creator of socalsmash.net, Miguel "Maiko" G., to learn more about what went into building this handy resource for his regional community.
What was your inspiration for building socalsmash.net?
I’ve been part of the SoCal smash community for over four years now, and I must say it has been one of the most impactful changes to my life, in a very positive way. I always try to find little ways to contribute back to it, and as a front-end developer with a background on graphic design along with start.gg’s data, improving my community’s digital presence just makes sense. The life and energy of the community is my inspiration, and I want its future to keep flourishing.
How was your experience working with our new public API?
Working with the new API has been a very enjoyable learning experience. It was pretty simple to setup and understand; both start.gg and GraphQL are well-documented and the start.gg team has been very supportive and helpful via their Discord channel.
What are you planning to do next with the project?
At the moment, the site only displays recent results and upcoming events, but there’s so much more to the SoCal scene than this. SoCal is a very large and diverse community and it is my vision for socalsmash.net to better serve the whole community as a digital platform. With an array of community members such as players, photographers, commentators, coaches, spectators and so much more, this won’t be an easy task but I’m willing to grow with it.
Are you looking for contributors?
I haven’t looked for help yet, since I’ve been very busy building the foundation of the project and I want it to be quite strong.
However, I do enjoy the idea of additional help, and it will eventually be needed.
If you're interested in helping, you can contact me at maiko.ssb@gmail.com!
Congrats on the launch, Maiko!
Maiko's project incorporates start.gg data in an excellent, custom-tailored experience for his community. If you, too, are interested in building an application around local tournaments, then I recommend checking out our examples like Tournaments by Location.