match the theme/track

what happened

built something that was neither "agents" nor "multimodal" for a multimodal agents hackathon. the project was good, but it didn't fit what the judges were looking for.

why it's a gotcha

hackathon judges have rubrics. if the rubric says "use of [sponsor API]" or "alignment with [theme]," those are real scoring categories. building something irrelevant to the track is like answering the wrong question on a test — doesn't matter how good your answer is.

the fix

read the judging criteria before you start building. seriously, read them. then build something that explicitly hits each criterion. you can still build what you're passionate about — just frame it within the track. this is the same mistake as not reading submission requirements — not reading the rules before playing the game. frame your impact in terms of what judges care about, and make sure you know what you're optimizing for before you start.