Runway API Hackathon · May 2026

An agent for label-heavy technical animation.

Tandava is a 4-stage agentic pipeline — concept → image → accuracy gate → motion — that turns Runway's flagship video model into a reliable instrument. The same loop ships across science, engineering, and performance art with text-stable labels, biophysically correct motion, and zero hallucinated structures.

Tandava makes label-heavy technical diagrams move without deforming the labels, hallucinating new structures, or breaking the biophysics. Three domains, one loop, end-to-end agentic.

The 4-stage pipeline

Every clip on this page traverses the same four stages. The accuracy gate iterates back into the same OpenAI conversation via the captured URL, sending diff-only structural refinements — never re-prompting the full body.

1
CONCEPT
Domain prompt scaffolding · ~3,000 chars · 12+ labels · biophysics or engineering specifics
2
IMAGE
OpenAI Images · Thinking mode · dark obsidian background · 4:3 museum-grade plate
3
ACCURACY GATE
Deterministic checks (aspect, min 768px, text density, perceptual hash) ⊕ LLM review · diff-only structural refinements in the same OpenAI conversation · v1→v2 with zero re-prompt · Real-ESRGAN x4 upscale before motion
4
MOTION
Runway veo3.1 with the §14 scaffold · 1920×1080 · 8s · text-stable, biophysically correct
Stage 3 rejects → diff-only refinement back to Stage 2 in the same OpenAI conversation. Zero re-prompting. v1→v2 in seconds.

Domain 1 — Science 11 clips · 35 production renders on veo3.1 @ 1920×1080

Eleven label-dense scientific cross-sections spanning molecular biology, virology, geophysics, astrophysics, theoretical relativity, planetary science, atmospheric dynamics, and biophysics. Text remains pixel-stable, biophysics stays correct, no new structures appear. Cosmological and atmospheric clips use the upscale → animate workflow: user-edited 4:3 source → Real-ESRGAN x4 → §14 motion scaffold with physically calibrated rates (3–4 Hz flame flicker, prograde differential disk rotation, traveling-wave envelope on basilar membrane, frame-dragging spiral, mesocyclone rotation, subduction-zone drift).

1 — Earth's magnetosphere

Solar wind, bow shock, Van Allen belts, reconnection X-points

2 — CRISPR-Cas9 cleavage

REC / RuvC / HNH domains, target strand, PAM, cleavage line

3 — SARS-CoV-2 cross-section

Spike trimers, M / E / N proteins, ssRNA, ACE2 inset

4 — Nitrogen fixation

Biological nitrogenase + industrial Haber-Bosch · ATP wheel · gauges

5 — Black hole accretion disk

Prograde differential rotation (inner 0.5 px/s, outer 0.2 px/s) · polar relativistic jets · ISCO label stable

6 — Volcano as Earth's circulatory system

Magma chamber convection · conduit pressure rise · vent plume buoyant lift · mantle-crust labels frozen

7 — Sound to sense

Pressure waves expand radially · cochlear basilar membrane traveling-wave envelope apex→base · auditory cortex pulse

8 — Kerr black hole singularity

Ring singularity + ergosphere · frame-dragging spiral inside outer horizon · Boyer-Lindquist coordinates label-stable

9 — Fire chemistry & fluid dynamics

3–4 Hz flame flicker · buoyant soot drift up · combustion-triangle labels frozen · radical-chain reaction arrows pulse

10 — Supercell storm

Mesocyclone rotation · anvil drift · rear-flank downdraft · wall cloud · forward-flank downdraft labels frozen

11 — Deep carbon cycle

Subducting slab drift · mantle convection · CO₂ outgassing arrows · carbonate-silicate cycle · reservoir flux numbers static

Domain 2 — Engineering 3 systems · vertical farm + pipeline schematic + smart-ring

Three engineering cross-sections that exercise the same agentic pipeline applied to totally different scales and modalities — a building-scale recirculating ecosystem, the studio's own data-flow architecture, and a wearable health monitor down at the millimetre scale. The smart-ring was refined v1→v2 in the same OpenAI conversation: diff-only structural updates (photodiode redrawn as receiver, 940nm IR LED made invisible, 1mm scale bar added) — zero re-prompt.

1 — Aquaponic-aeroponic vertical farm

12 labeled subsystems · aeroponic mist chamber · DWC rafts · biofilter (NH₃→NO₂→NO₃) · fish tank · mineralizer · LED grow panels · sensor suite

2 — The Tandava pipeline (visualized)

CONCEPT → IMAGE → ACCURACY GATE → MOTION → OUTPUT · loopback arrow on rejection · stage labels frozen · the studio drawing itself

Smart-ring cross-section — refined v2, with corrected photodiode collection arrows, invisible IR LED, and 1mm scale bar

3 — Smart-ring health-monitor cross-section · v2 (image, refined v1→v2 in-session)

12 labeled components — sapphire optical lens · PPG cluster (green/red/IR) · NTC skin-temperature sensor · curved Li-Po · Qi wireless coil · nRF52840 BLE SoC · 6-axis IMU · PMIC · Hall wear sensor · rigid-flex PCB · grade-5 titanium PVD shell · alignment notch

Domain 3 — Performance Art Indian classical dance & yoga anatomy · 4 poses · veo3.1 @ 1920×1080

Four label-dense pose-anatomy plates from the Bharatanatyam and yoga lineages. The same §14 scaffold that locks Earth's magnetosphere in place also locks a tribhanga stance, a baddhakonasana opening, an alapadma mudra, and a swastikasana seat — generality proven across radically different subject matter. Sanskrit labels with English transliteration · muscle groups, energy lines, and weight-transfer axes frozen · subtle breath cycle is the only motion.

1 — Baddhakonasana

Hip-opener asana · adductors, gracilis, hip flexors labeled · ischial-tuberosity / femur / pelvis bone landmarks · breath direction frozen

2 — Swastikasana

Meditative seated posture · spine alignment line · prana flow direction · chakra energy centres luminance-lift bottom→top

3 — Tribhanga

Three-bend classical stance (neck, torso, knee) · weight-transfer line hip→foot · Sanskrit + transliterated pose name frozen

4 — Alapadma mudra

Lotus-bloom hasta mudra · finger position labels · palm orientation · iconographic meaning · petal-spread luminance lift finger-by-finger

The §14 hardened scaffold

Naive prompts on dense technical diagrams fail in three predictable ways: text glyphs deform, the camera ignores "static" hints and zooms anyway, and subjects animate poetically instead of physically. Tandava enforces a hardened scaffold on every submission, distilled across 35 production renders.

1
Static lock-offframe 1 = frame 8 · no zoom, pan, orbit, tilt
2
Labels hard-frozenfixed pixels · no deform, scale, or re-render
3
Preserve line weightsno thick glowing replacement arcs, no halos
4
No hue shiftsluminance-only highlights · no "ignite" / "glow blue" verbs
5
Explicit biophysical motionper-component bullets with amplitudes (px), frequencies (Hz), axis constraints, NO-DO lists
6
No new structuresonly animate pixels that already exist in the source image
7
Versioned output{key}_v{VERSION}.mp4 · never overwrite a prior take

Receipts

3
Domains validated through one loop · science, engineering, performance art
35
Production renders on veo3.1 @ 1920×1080
17
gen4.5 baselines preserved for side-by-side comparison
8,360
Credits spent · 16.7% of the 50,000-credit allocation
0
Label deformations · scaffold held across all 3 domains