High school students power the future

The UF AI Design Showcase third-place team, Brilliant Academic Learning Dominators, from Belleview High School, included Teddy Brown, Lily Congleton, Aidan Aylward and Isaac Hilderbrand. [Photo courtesy University of Florida]

Dozens of local high school students with a passion for artificial intelligence visited the University of Florida recently for the third annual Powering the Community: High School AI Design contest sponsored by Duke Energy.

Starting Oct. 3 and continuing for six and a half weeks, student teams completed six activities to develop and apply their understanding of power, microgrids and the use of AI tools to design a smart power grid system tailored to their communities. Top-placing teams from each school presented their proposals of a smart grid design strategy to a panel of judges from Duke Energy.

The Sparkitects from South Sumter High School won first place for designing a smart grid system that used calculus principles to optimize how emergency power could best meet demand in real-time.  Taking second place was The Circuit Breakers team from Wildwood High School and the third-place award went to Belleview High School’s Brilliant Academic Learning Dominators (B.A.L.D.), with members Isaac Hilderbrand, Lily Congleton, Teddy Brown and Aidan Aylward, under teacher Dale Toney.

Powering the Community is led by Nancy Ruzycki, Ph.D., instructional associate professor in the Department of Materials Science & Engineering. Program managers Evan Dolling and Sophia Ahmed, Ph.D., coordinate the contest curriculum and logistics while UF undergraduate engineering mentors offer technical support and guidance.

The contest has expanded since its launch in 2022 and the inception of the Design Showcase in 2023, with 21 high school student teams competing this year. Judges include Duke senior engineers Gary Bitter, Ernie Moore and Chuck Collins, who praised the students’ creativity and technical insight. Participating schools included Belleview High School, Forest High School, West Port High School, P.K. Yonge Developmental Research School, South Sumter High School and Wildwood Middle High School.