01
Draft sports, not athletes
Fans build a roster from Olympic, Paralympic, and shared Team USA sport cards. The draft rewards discovery instead of athlete-level outcome prediction.
MethodologyJudge-friendly overview
How Draft USA turns momentum into a playable fan draft.
Draft USA is a fantasy-style discovery tool for the road to LA28: fans draft sports, compare transparent momentum signals, improve Olympic + Paralympic balance, and ask Gemini to explain the story behind each roster.
Product flow
Four steps judges can verify live
The core interaction stays simple: draft, inspect the score, balance the roster, then ask Gemini for narrative context.
02
Rank national momentum
Each card receives a transparent 0–100 Momentum Score from five fan-facing signals: news, world championship activity, qualification context, hometown breadth, and parity value.
03
Reward balanced rosters
The leaderboard adds bonuses for Olympic + Paralympic pairings, hometown-region diversity, underfollowed Paralympic sports, and rosters with at least 40% Paralympic-side representation.
04
Use Gemini as the Scout
Gemini turns the score breakdown into plain-English scouting notes, next-pick suggestions, and commissioner recaps that keep the tone fan-facing and non-predictive.
Momentum Score formula
Each sport card shows the same weighted blend, so the ranking is explainable before Gemini ever writes a scouting note.
- News momentum30%
- World championship signal25%
- Qualification activity20%
- Hometown breadth15%
- Parity value10%
Responsible AI guardrails
The app is intentionally framed around attention, discovery, and preparation milestones rather than athlete outcomes.
- Momentum is a fan-engagement signal, not a medal forecast.
- Olympic and Paralympic sports are modeled with equal prominence.
- Hometown signals are phrased conditionally; geography does not guarantee outcomes.
- Scout responses avoid gambling language, guarantees, and athlete-level performance claims.
Data inputs
The demo uses structured seed data to model the final product's public-data workflow. The same fields drive cards, charts, roster scoring, and Gemini context.
Sport universe
LA28-style Olympic + Paralympic sport cards
Signals
Public-style news, championship, qualification, hometown, and parity inputs
AI layer
Gemini-powered explanation, recommendation, and recap generation
Deployment target
Next.js app designed for Google Cloud deployment
Hackathon fit
Built for Challenge 3, with parity and hometown signals kept visible.
Draft USA focuses on a National Momentum generator for LA28 sports while still surfacing Olympic + Paralympic parity and regional fan-engagement context throughout the experience.