Took part in a hackathon.... Made the damn system shine and judges didn't even look at the implementation.
Chose the winner by just the idea! And I was like whaaaat the f***!!!

I sense some sour grapes and a slightly more complicated outcome here.

Participate in our hackathon and we'll do justice to your work
csimhssce.in/err_404/

I know your feelings

From my experience (1st place at my region) the judges do look for the best idea, they are not excpecting a full working system in just 24 hours, a well defined prototype is enough with a great idea behind.

From my experience the judges often look mostly on your PowerPoint presentation of the concept, none time spent on your actual prototype.

Honestly, they're more like pitching competitions rather than putting some prototype together. Like 48 h pitching competition

Next time hardcode everything in 2 hrs, and make a damn good ppt

If you want that the actual code matters at a hackathon,the go to a pro-bono-hackathon. There will be ngo's, which need the code.