Pickleball is gaining momentum as a team sport. In this context, Power Pickleball revolutionizes the experience to enjoy it at its best.
Power Pickleball's mission is to offer a user-friendly and accessible platform. It's focused on organizing leagues and tournaments for pickleball teams of every level.
The platform has had a huge impact since its conception. Not only does it embrace the values of team play. Also, it's created to encourage physical activities in a fun environment.
We started our joint work with Power Pickleball in 2021. The final goal was for players and organizations to track their clubs and leagues.
Power Pickleball’s main goal is to provide an accessible environment. In this sense, it applies to all types of people who enjoy pickleball. Moreover, the venture wanted players to keep track of their advances and matches.
Pickleball, as a sport, was born in 1965. Its origins lie in providing entertainment for kids on rainy days. It combines badminton, tennis, and table tennis elements, and it's played by two or four players. As a nod to its hybrid nature, the name derives from the mixed rowing crews found on pickle boats. In 2022, it became the official state sport of Washington. Along with this, the game has officialized its rules and displays. Nowadays, its field has a regulated size of 20 feet by 44 feet, the same measures as badminton fields. Further, it has its own ball standards, unique to the sport. These have a durable molded material with a smooth surface. Also, they must have between 26 to 40 evenly spaced circular holes. In general, balls with smaller holes get their use in outdoor play, to cut wind's effects. According to USAP regulations, tournaments must choose from a list of preapproved balls.
The idea for Power Pickleball arises from searching for joint solutions for pickleball enthusiasts. Furthermore, it mixes collective activities with encouraging physical exercise. As a result, it serves as a mix of a calendar, a sports fixture, and a forum for different members. Inside the platform, there are several types of profiles. For instance, creating a member or club profile is completely free. Yet, organizers have the choice of charging a fee for tournament participation. Also, there are different options regarding the club or league's privacy. Organizers are able to set up tournaments as public or private. This gives them power over what other people can see within a specific tournament.
Our team faced different challenges with this project. Its main categories were the database organization and the user interface. Also, we needed to take into consideration the different combinations of profiles. The platform needed all different combinations between free/paid and public/private tournaments. Furthermore, we aimed to give users verifying options via email or SMS message. Last but not least, we needed a secure payment platform for paid tournaments. In summary, the proposal was to build a strong space for teams to keep track of their activities.
Since we couldn't find a library able to adapt to our specific needs, we built the Front-End from scratch with CSS. Also, we combined Nest.JS and Azura for the Back-End. To this, we added GraphQL as the language to handle the APIs. For the payments, we chose Stripe, given its wide variety of reliable methods. And for the users' verification system, we relied on Twilio's API.
We developed both users' and organizers' profiles. These have different permissions and access to features. All users have viewing access to matches, awards, results, and statistics. Yet, only organizers can post content to the leagues’ forums. This allows users to discuss specific aspects of the tournament and its matches. Moreover, organizers are in charge of updating the final match results. Those have to get approved by organizers from both clubs, to guarantee transparency. In case they don't get a final agreement, Power Pickleball will act as an intermediary.
