Judging and emotional buy-in

Draft status: this is initial content, not reviewed domain expertise yet.

The first principle

Judges are people under time pressure. They may use rubrics, but they still form an early emotional read: "I get this", "this matters", "this team is sharp", or "I am confused".

The goal is not manipulation. The goal is to make the value of the project easy to feel before the rubric language arrives.

What judges often reward

• A problem that feels specific and real.
• A team that appears to have made hard choices.
• A demo that proves one thing clearly.
• Evidence that the team learned during the event.
• A story that respects the sponsor or theme without becoming generic.

What creates distrust

• Overclaiming impact from a prototype.
• Hiding what is mocked.
• Using buzzwords instead of user evidence.
• Demoing unrelated features.
• Making judges do the work of connecting problem to solution.

Draft model

Think of judging as two layers:

1. The emotional layer: Do I care, understand, and trust this?
2. The analytical layer: Does it satisfy the criteria and compare well?

If the emotional layer fails, the rubric has to rescue the project. If the emotional layer works, the rubric has an easier job.