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MODEL FORGE 2026

JB Institute of Engineering & Technology

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Official Guidelines

Hackathon Rules & Instructions

Please read these guidelines carefully before the event. All teams are expected to follow them throughout the hackathon.

1. Eligibility & Team Formation

  • Open to students of JBIET and invited institutions (as notified by organizers).
  • Each team must consist of 3–4 members.
  • All members must be registered via the official Google Form before the deadline.
  • A participant can be part of only one team.

2. Problem Statements & Tracks

  • Tracks include: NLP, Time Series & Forecasting, Computer Vision, Generative AI.
  • Final problem statements / datasets will be provided on the day of the hackathon.
  • Teams must build their own models from scratch using the given data (no pre-trained models unless explicitly allowed by organizers).
  • External public datasets are allowed only if organizers approve and if they are clearly cited.

3. Development Rules

  • Coding must be done during the event time only.
  • Teams may use any programming language and ML libraries (Python preferred: NumPy, pandas, scikit-learn, PyTorch, TensorFlow, etc.).
  • Use of AI tools (e.g., ChatGPT, Copilot) is allowed for assistance, but final logic must be understood by the team.
  • All code should be original to the team and not copied from existing GitHub projects without significant modification and understanding.

4. Evaluation & Judging Criteria

  • Model Performance – accuracy / error metrics appropriate to the task.
  • Approach & ML Design – feature engineering, model selection, experimentation.
  • Code Quality – clarity, reproducibility, structure, and documentation.
  • Presentation & Explanation – clarity in explaining decisions, results, and trade-offs.
  • Originality – creativity in approach and solution design.

5. Submission Requirements

  • Teams must submit:
    • Code (Jupyter notebook and/or Python scripts).
    • A short readme / report describing approach, model, and results.
    • Any configuration or requirements file (if needed to run the code).
  • Submissions after the deadline may not be evaluated.
  • Each team must be ready with a short demo / presentation (5–7 minutes).

6. Conduct & Fair Use

  • Plagiarism (code or ideas) is strictly prohibited and may lead to disqualification.
  • Teams must behave professionally and respectfully towards organizers, mentors, judges, and other teams.
  • Any attempt to manipulate results, misuse data, or violate rules will lead to immediate disqualification.
  • Decisions of the judging panel and organizers will be final and binding.

7. Logistics & Setup

  • Participants should bring their own laptops, chargers, and necessary accessories.
  • Internet access will be provided as per institute policy; downloading large models / datasets may be restricted.
  • Teams are responsible for regularly saving their work and maintaining backups.

8. Queries & Support

For any clarification related to rules, problem statements, or logistics, please contact the Student or Faculty Coordinators listed on the main page.

Note: Organizers reserve the right to update or refine these guidelines before or during the event. Any changes will be communicated to all teams.