Judging AI hackathon projects: what to check when every team says 'we used AI'

Half the projects at any student hackathon now include an AI component, and most panels have no reliable way to tell a real one from a wrapper around a prompt. Having built RAG, fine-tuning and vision systems for a living, these are the checks I run in three minutes at a judging table — and the ones I share with fellow judges beforehand. Is the...