The challenge
Drone operations become difficult when several agencies need to work over the same area. Routes can conflict, restricted zones must be respected and operators need a shared view of what is happening. During SpaceShield Hack 2026, our team approached this as a coordination problem rather than a single-drone control problem.
We built SkyMarshal C2 around a dispatcher that gives teams a common operational picture. The prototype combined live orthophotomaps, restricted-zone routing and airspace-conflict avoidance for operations over Stalowa Wola.
Building under hackathon pressure
The product had to communicate its purpose immediately. We focused on a map-centred interface where an operator could understand missions, routes and conflicts without navigating through layers of administration. React 19 and Vite let us iterate quickly, while React-Leaflet provided the foundation for the geospatial interface.
The technical work and the presentation had to reinforce each other. A working map was not enough: we needed to show why coordinated routing matters, how the dispatcher would support multiple agencies and how the concept could develop beyond the prototype.
The result
SpaceShield Hack 2026 brought together more than 200 participants across four tracks. SkyMarshal C2 won first place in the Dual-Use category. The award included PLN 10,000 and PLN 20,000 in CloudFerro cloud credits.
The project strengthened my interest in products that connect software with real operational constraints. It also reinforced a recurring lesson from hackathons: choosing the right scope and communicating a coherent system matter as much as the number of features built.
