The score, the feedback, and Brighton

The Vibe Coding Games showcase was 9 June. I scored 15.5 out of 30 and didn't make the cut. Disappointed, I still requested the judges' feedback — because I needed to know. I'm the kind of person who needs honest feedback; I can't stand sugar-coating.

The feedback was worth more than the score: the build was fine, the business plan was the weak spot. The judges also said I'd made the languages more important than the actual scanner — the scanner should have been the star. The best part of the feedback: I knew which API to use for what, so the build itself wasn't the issue. It was the direction of it. With a foolproof business plan and the scanner front and centre, it could have been better.

June also closed the SniffCheck story from May: on 23 June the native rebuild went live — same design, no more bugs, and since rebuilding and updating it's a much better app.

After the hackathon I joined the CreateWith community — which Harold Dijkstra, one of the organisers of the Vibe Coding Games World Cup, is a part of. Before joining I'd found out they were holding an AI conference in Brighton on the 25th — and that another conference, Evolve, a UK innovation and tech conference, was on the 26th, where the CreateWith x Evolve winner would be announced.

Later that month I entered another — CreateWith x Evolve, in Brighton — and this time started with the plan: who it's for, why they'd care, what it costs. I made finalist. Standing in Brighton, nine months after a hospital bed, was the first time the new life felt real rather than borrowed — not because of the result, but because of the room. A year ago I wouldn't have believed I belonged in it. In June I just… did.