Highlights from the first DigitalOcean Functions Challenge

To celebrate the launch of DigitalOcean Functions, we invited developers to experience the power of lightweight serverless compute with a fun activity. The DigitalOcean Functions Challenge was announced during the Functions Launch Livestream Event and ran between June 7, 2022 and July 7, 2022. We’re thrilled to share some highlights from the project.

In this challenge, participants created a DigitalOcean Function with a runtime of their choice (NodeJS, Python, Go, or PHP) using either AppPlatform or Standalone Functions. In this function, the developers were instructed to make a POST request to an API endpoint that, if called correctly, created a Sammy sticker in a Virtual Aquarium. The challenge could be fully completed within the free allotment of DigitalOcean Function usage.

T-shirts were awarded to anyone who successfully created a DigitalOcean function and submitted a Sammy. The challenge was met with an enthusiastic response, with over 230 Sammys filling up our virtual aquarium!

The community

Participants were encouraged to join a channel hosted on the DigitalOcean Community Discord where they could get help from their peers and share screenshots of their Sammy in the aquarium. In the Discord Channel, participants also shared their own tutorials and guides on how to complete the challenge. One guide was posted to Ops.io and three were shared to Dev.to—including one for Rust!

Looking Ahead

We had a great time with the Functions Challenge and saw a lot of positive engagement and feedback. We’re looking forward to doing this again as more features are released with even more to do! Keep an eye on our Twitter account and the Functions Challenge Page for our next challenge.