If you’ve been hearing buzz about the Presidential AI Challenge and wondering how it applies to your students, this post is for you. I dug into the 19-page official guidebook so you don’t have to, and I’m breaking down what matters most for the youth-focused tracks 1 and 2.
This challenge is a chance for students across the U.S. to showcase their creativity, problem-solving, and understanding of AI in meaningful ways. And bonus, there are awards!
Let’s walk through the essentials of the youth competition.
Start Here: The Presidential AI Challenge at a Glance
The challenge has three tracks:
- Track 1: Youth Proposal
- Track 2: Youth Technical
- Track 3: Educator Entries
This guide covers everything you need to know to support students entering Tracks 1 and 2.
Educators: Interested in entering the challenge yourself? Track 3 of the challenge is focused on educator entries! Hundreds of teachers have already grabbed my track 3 guide for educators, where you could win up to $30,000 for your classroom AI work: Your Guide to Crushing the Presidential AI Challenge as an Educator
Who Can Enter the Presidential AI Challenge Youth Tracks?
Youth participation for both tracks 1 and 2 is organized into three categories by age group:
- Elementary (Grades K–5): Whole classes or groups led by an educator or community leader
- Middle School (Grades 6–8): Teams of 1–4 students + a supervising adult
- High School (Grades 9–12): Teams of 1–4 students + a supervising adult
For middle and high school teams, the supervising adult:
- Can be a teacher, parent, or community member
- Registers the team
- Submits the project
- Ensures students use AI safely and responsibly
- Must be included in team eligibility for the competition level
You don’t need to be tech wizards to participate. You just need curious students, a real problem to explore, and creativity.
What Students Can Win
Even if your students don’t win the big prize, all participants receive a Presidential Certificate of Participation.
For teams that enter the competition:
- State Champions earn achievement certificates, cloud credits, and resources.
- Regional Champions receive everything from the state level plus eligibility for a potential invitation to Washington D.C.
National Champions receive:
- A Presidential Award Certificate
- Cloud credits
- Middle and high school entries: $10,000 per team member
- Elementary-level entries: $10,000 for the school or group
Yes, that means a four-student team could bring home $40,000 for their winning entry!
What Will Students Create?
The two tracks offer two different pathways depending on student interests, resources, and age levels.
Track 1 focuses on a detailed proposal. This is a great option if you aren’t comfortable with the technical side of building AI models and solutions or don’t have access to necessary tools.
Track 2 is technical with teams actually building a solution with AI technologies.
Track 1: Detailed Proposal
Students write a well-researched proposal showing how AI could solve a real community challenge.
This track is perfect for younger students or teams who prefer writing, research, and problem-solving over building a technical tool.
Examples of what this might look like:
- Proposing an AI tool that improves bus route safety
- Designing a plan to reduce food waste in the cafeteria utilizing AI
- Improving school-family communication
Track 1 teams must create:
- A 500+ word written narrative
- A presentation poster (digital or photo) linked in the PDF
Track 2: Technical Solution
Students build a working AI-powered solution, even if simple.
This could be:
- An app
- A website
- A workflow using an AI model
- A custom model
- An AI-based classroom or community tool
Examples include:
- An image recognition tool to sort recycling
- A chatbot explaining local history
- A system that analyzes student feedback or school climate data
Tip: Students do not need advanced coding skills. There are many low-code and no-code tools out there. This is where vibe coding shines. Canva AI is a great school-friendly vibe coding platform. Learn more in this blog post: Gamify Learning with Canva AI: Interactive Classroom Activities Teachers Can Create Quickly
Track 2 teams must create:
- A 500+ word narrative
- A 4-minute demonstration video
Tip: Don’t stress over the video. A simple screencast video goes a long way. Use my favorite tool, ScreenPal. Share your screen and have students talk through their entry. ScreenPal uploads your video to the cloud automatically and gives you the link to paste into the PDF document. Done!
Your Submission Checklist
Every youth team must submit their entry as one single PDF (maximum 10 pages, 50MB, 12-point font). That PDF must include:
- A 500+ word narrative
- For Track 1: A link to a presentation poster
- For Track 2: A link to the video
- A certification of originality confirming the project is new, created for the challenge, and credits all tools and sources
Tip: Make sure all links work in a private browsing window.
Avoid These Pitfalls
These mistakes will get a student entry disqualified or overlooked:
- Submitting multiple files instead of one PDF
- Leaving the poster or video link locked or requiring login
- Forgetting the originality certification
- Exceeding 10 pages
- Including student information (names, pictures, etc.) without permission
The Presidential AI Challenge Timeline
The submission deadline is January 20, 2026.
Other important dates include:
- State Champions announced: March 2026
- Regional Championships: April 2026
- National Finals in Washington, D.C.: June 7–10, 2026
What Makes a Winning Youth Entry
Judging is based on a 100-point rubric, and tracks 1 and 2 each have their own rubric version.
For Track 1 (Proposal):
Judges look for:
- Clear definition of a real community problem
- Strong research
- Realistic AI application plan
- Creativity
- Understanding of AI concepts
- Reflection and learning
- Alignment to national priorities
For Track 2 (Technical):
Judges score:
- Community problem and impact
- Technical implementation of AI
- Iteration and problem-solving
- How accurately and responsibly the AI functions
- Creativity
- Media quality in the video demo
- Narrative quality
Resources to Get Started
The LindyHoc blog has several resources to help your students generate ideas:
- Complete the 13 Day of AI Literacy Advent Calendar
- Explore AI Literacy TECH-Tac-Toe
- Level up with Generative AI TECH-Tac-Toe
Entry Ideas Students Could Start Tomorrow
If your student teams need inspiration, share these challenge-ready ideas.
Track 1: Proposal Ideas
- School Bus Route Safety Optimizer: Students research bus route inefficiencies or safety concerns and propose how AI could analyze traffic patterns, weather data, and timing to suggest safer, more efficient routes.
- Cafeteria Food Waste Reduction System: Teams analyze cafeteria waste data and propose an AI prediction model that forecasts daily meal demand based on patterns like weather, school events, or day of week.
- Multilingual Family Communication Bridge: Proposal for an AI tool that translates school communications into families’ home languages while maintaining context and tone.
- Library Book Availability Predictor: Students propose an AI system that analyzes checkout patterns, due dates, and hold requests to predict when popular books will be available, helping students plan their reading and reducing frustration with long wait times.
- Bathroom Pass Optimizer: An AI system that analyzes bathroom pass patterns to identify optimal times for student bathroom breaks, reducing classroom disruptions and ensuring bathrooms aren’t overcrowded during peak times.
- Substitute Teacher Success Kit: A proposal for an AI assistant that helps substitute teachers quickly understand classroom routines, student needs, and lesson plans by analyzing regular teacher notes and patterns.
- Lunch Menu Preference Predictor: An AI tool that analyzes student meal choices over time to help cafeteria staff predict which menu items will be popular on any given day, reducing food waste and ensuring popular items don’t run out.
Track 2: Technical Ideas
- Recycling Sorter: Students train an image recognition model using Teachable Machine to identify recyclables vs. trash vs. compost, then demonstrate it with a video showing real-world testing at their school.
- School FAQ Chatbot: Build a simple chatbot that answers common student questions (lunch menu, bell schedule, clubs) using a no-code platform such as SchoolAI Spaces or a custom GPT.
- Classroom Noise Monitor & Alert: Students build a system that monitors classroom noise levels and gently alerts the class when it exceeds productive levels using a tool such as Google AI Studio.
- Extracurricular Matcher: A Gemini Gem that recommends extracurricular activities to students based on their interests, schedule availability, and past participation patterns, helping students discover activities they might not know exist.
More Ideas
Have students start by creating a list of challenges in your school and community. Use those challenges to brainstorm solutions and go from there.
Tip: The Sustainable Development Goals would be a great way to begin brainstorming ideas.
If students need more support, use a school-approved large language model (LLM) as a brainstorming partner (Gemini, Copilot, Perplexity, etc.). Once students have brainstormed challenges, try this prompt:
“I want to leverage AI to solve this challenge in my school/community: [add challenge]. Generate 5 project ideas I could build in less than [X] hours. Identify what resources I would need access to to complete each project.”
For even more ideas, refer to the sample projects provided by the challenge.
Official Resources for the Presidential AI Challenge
This post outlines all the need-to-knows. For more details, reference the official challenge resources:
Your students have everything they need to take on this challenge, and their idea might be exactly what the judges are looking for.
