TEKBOT Robotics Challenge

TRC was built for Tekbot Robotics, a Beninese deeptech startup specializing in robotics and AI, led by Mohamed Salifou, who also serves as technical advisor to the Ministry of Higher Education on AI and robotics programs, and is a key figure at Sèmè City Open Park. A client with expectations to match, and a three-week deadline to deliver a complete platform before competition day. I served as project manager leading a team of four full-stack developers including myself.

Before TRC, these tournaments ran on spreadsheets and WhatsApp groups, no live score tracking, no structured ticketing, no visibility for participating universities. The tight timeline left no room to improvise: the system had to work reliably from day one of the competition, with no space for live fixes.

The technical core of the project is real time. Every match broadcasts its scores live through a self-hosted WebSocket server (Laravel Reverb), with no dependency on third-party services like Pusher. The scoring system itself mirrors the competition's actual rules, points per category of waste collected, bonuses for cleared zones, time penalties, with an immutable history: every score change is preserved, never overwritten, guaranteeing full traceability in case of a dispute. A referee's score requires mandatory validation from a chief referee before publication, a genuine two-tier workflow rather than a simple form.

Ticketing combines two payment gateways, card payments via Flutterwave and Mobile Money via PawaPay across eight African countries, automatically routed based on the buyer's choice, with QR code generation and a PDF ticket sent by email, purchasable even without an account for Mobile Money. All of it sits behind a five-role architecture (from visitor to super-admin), checked at three levels, middleware, request authorization, ownership control, so no admin can ever grant themselves more access than they're allowed.

The competition ran without a hitch, and the platform held up from the first match to the last. Technically, TRC runs on Laravel for the backend and Vue.js for the frontend, with a bilingual French/English interface, and 40+ automated tests covering payment flows and authorization rules.