Creativity of my project + can I use Arduino?

Hey guys, so for the upcoming Gemini API challenge i came up with an idea but then I learned it was made for the previous competition, would there be an issue if I make something similar? The project that was made isn’t exactly the same as mine as my vision for it is more in depth and very different from the project but it does have some features I was going to use. I don’t want to lose any points on creativity/innovation since they play a huge role.

Also this is an IoT project and I’m going to use Arduinos for it, would this get me disqualified or could I use my equipment?

It needs to be an app, as long as you use an app with backend and frontend powered with gemini and it has unique featues it should not be a problem.