Hi everyone, I'm a 15-year-old developer who has spent nearly a year creating an autonomous AI terminal agent called Zai Shell, which focuses on system self-healing and behavioral security. I submitted my project to a national high school research competition and just received my pre-evaluation results, but unfortunately, my project was eliminated based solely on a PDF report without any code being executed. I got numerical scores for various criteria, but no specific feedback was given.
Here's the breakdown of my scores out of 5.00:
- Alignment with the project's main field: 4.33
- Clarity of the problem definition: 4.00
- Association of objectives with the problem: 4.00
- Clear, measurable, and achievable objectives: 4.00
- Suitability of method to achieve goals: 4.00
- Detail and clarity of applied methods: 3.67
- Level of innovation: 3.33
- Potential impact: 4.00
- Clarity of results: 3.00
- Level of evidence supporting objectives: 3.00
- Functionality level of the product: 3.00
- Scalability potential: 3.33
Total score: 72.16 out of 100.
The toughest part for me was receiving a flat score of 3.00 in both the 'Functionality' and 'Evidence' categories, essentially stating that the project is not functional and lacks sufficient evidence. I'm left wondering if the jury's assessment was fair, especially since they never saw the actual system in operation. I feel frustrated that my serious engineering effort was dismissed without a true evaluation of my work. What do you think, was this rejection justified or unfair?
3 Answers
From what I've read, it looks like the judges were looking for hard data proving your project works as intended. They likely wanted evidence like performance metrics or comparisons with existing tools. The low scores you received in 'Evidence' might mean they were expecting solid benchmarks instead of just a theoretical framework. It’s a bummer, but try to take this feedback and use it to strengthen your project moving forward!
I understand your frustration completely! It seems like your project was dismissed too early based just on its presentation rather than real-world application. If your README didn’t clarify how your AI agent functions in practical situations, that could definitely impact the judges' perceptions. It might be worth refining those aspects to better outline your agent's capabilities in future submissions. Hang in there!
Absolutely! Clear documentation can make a huge difference. It’s worth spending some time to explain how your project can actually solve real-world issues. Don’t get discouraged; keep iterating on your work!
It's tough to hear that your project was rejected after all that hard work. This national competition likely had a massive influx of submissions — around 29,000! They had to have some way to narrow down the entries, but I can see how you feel it's unfair that your project was marked low on functionality without any practical testing. That said, the scores seem pretty decent overall; maybe they just didn’t have enough time to adequately assess every submission. Don’t let this stop you from pursuing your interests in AI; it sounds like you're on a great path!
Exactly! Given the number of submissions, it’s understandable that they had to make quick decisions. But it's also incredibly frustrating to receive such a strict evaluation when your work might not have been appreciated fully. Keep pushing forward!
That makes sense. An impressive idea is only part of the equation; having concrete proof of its effectiveness can make all the difference in competitions like this. Maybe gather some data next time and it’ll help in your evaluations!