{"id":67599,"date":"2026-06-09T15:08:14","date_gmt":"2026-06-09T15:08:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/67599\/"},"modified":"2026-06-09T15:08:14","modified_gmt":"2026-06-09T15:08:14","slug":"knoxville-area-students-reach-finals-of-presidential-a-i-challenge-in-d-c","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/67599\/","title":{"rendered":"Knoxville-area students reach finals of Presidential A.I. Challenge in D.C."},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON, D.C. (WVLT) – A group of elementary school students from East Tennessee is among the finalists in this year\u2019s Presidential A.I. Challenge, a national competition designed to encourage young people to develop artificial intelligence solutions for real-world problems.<\/p>\n

The competition began with more than 20,000 teams from across the country, but only about 40 advanced to the finals in Washington, D.C. Among them is a team from Alcoa Intermediate School near Knoxville.<\/p>\n

The students\u2019 project focuses on helping classmates better understand and complete their homework through an artificial intelligence-powered tutoring tool.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe found that a lot of students struggled with their homework, so we wanted to create a homework helper app that\u2019s basically a built-in tutor for students so that grades go up and they\u2019re more successful,\u201d said fifth-grader Ayden Taverna.<\/p>\n

Fourth-grader Aaron Gallagher said the goal is not simply to provide answers, but to provide helpful tips and promote time management. <\/p>\n

\u201cTo make sure kids understand their homework, not just get the answers, but to understand their homework and to do their homework on time,\u201d Gallagher said.<\/p>\n

The students spent months working on the project through their school\u2019s A.I. club, building a prototype on Google\u2019s Gemini platform. Along the way, they learned coding and software development skills while refining their idea.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had to code the mainframe of what we wanted, then we just added little things and started tweaking around with it,\u201d said fifth-grader Emma Connor. \u201cIt was really fun and interesting. My teammates helped me a lot with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Students said the development process came with challenges.<\/p>\n

\"wvlt\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cIt was very difficult at first especially, but once we found that sweet spot of where that prototype needed to be, it all sorted itself out,\u201d said fifth-grader Ryker Cochran.<\/p>\n

Advancing from state competition to regional competition and ultimately the national finals was a major accomplishment for the team.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve got something to strive for, and it\u2019s nice to have that feeling that I\u2019m representing more than myself,\u201d Cochran said.<\/p>\n

Teachers involved with the project said the experience also gave students an opportunity to learn about the strengths and limitations of artificial intelligence.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs an educator it was very exciting to see them step through the problem-solving process to find the right answer,\u201d said advisor Hope McDonald. \u201cWe talked about the limitations and the biases, so the kids learned right off the bat, you have to have human oversight.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Presidential A.I. Challenge aims to inspire students and educators to use artificial intelligence responsibly while developing solutions to community problems. The winning team will receive a $10,000 prize for their school.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 WVLT. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON, D.C. (WVLT) – A group of elementary school students from East Tennessee is among the finalists in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":67600,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[24,37931,37930,25,1634,21077,2052,2187],"class_list":["post-67599","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ai","tag-ai","tag-alcoa","tag-alcoia","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-competition","tag-dc","tag-knoxville","tag-washington"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67599","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67599"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67599\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67600"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67599"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67599"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67599"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}