Frequently Asked Questions

For elementary classrooms and groups, a team can be any subset of a classroom, extracurricular group, or homeschool students, including the full classroom or group or just 1 student, along with an educator or group leader, who is at least 18 years old. For middle school youth and  high school youth teams, at least 1 student, but no more than 4 students, plus a “Supervising Adult” (an educator, community member, or family member who is at least 18 years old) can be a team. For educators in Track III, teams must have at least 1, but not more than 3 educators. See Section IV of the Official Rules.

Yes! We encourage this!

Yes! Middle school and high school youth must still have a Supervising Adult to submit the team registration, consent forms, and projects. See Section IV of the Official Rules.

No, middle school youth teams may only consist of students in grades 6-8 and high school teams may only consist of students in grades 9-12. See Section IV of the Official Rules.

No. Each student may only be on one team.

A student may switch teams after he or she is registered by asking their Supervising Adult to email Challenge@science.doe.gov for further instructions. Please note that new parental or legal guardian consent and media release forms will be required.

Yes! Please ensure that each student is only on one team and that teams do not mix elementary, middle school, and high school youth.

Students who voluntarily choose to enter their projects into the competition part of the Challenge (Challenge Competition), must be a U.S. citizen, U.S. national (American Samoa), or lawful permanent resident (LPR). Students who are attending a U.S. Department of Defense or U.S. Department of State schools overseas may participate. Please note: travel to the National Championships will only be provided within the United States and its districts and territories. All other eligible students would have to arrange and pay for their travel to the United States.

Only one adult may be the Supervising Adult for middle school and high school youth teams. No other adults will be recognized by the Challenge. However, the team may work with local mentors, with permission from the students’ parents or legal guardians. Elementary groups may have up to 4 official leaders who are registered as group leaders.

The consent forms for youth participants must be signed by the youth’s parent or legal guardian.

No; however, educators in Track III must be full-time K-12 public, charter, private, or official homeschool teachers. See Section IV of the Official Rules.

No, only current, full-time K-12 classroom educators at public, charter, private, and homeschools may form educator teams. See Section IV of the Official Rules. College Faculty are welcome (and encouraged) to participate as Supervising Adults or mentors.

Elementary groups can be any size from 1 to many students, ideally no more than 30 students.

The forms can be found on the Eligibility page.

Yes. Please submit two registrations – one on the educator category and one in the youth category.

No, grade categories cannot be combined. Middle school youth teams may only consist of students in grades 6-8 and high school teams may only consist of students in grades 9-12.

Yes, parents can serve as community group leaders in the elementary classroom/group category. You will only register yourself, but you must collect signed a Parental and Legal Guardian Consent and Media Release for Elementary Youth Participants form for each child in your group and email all forms to AI.Challenge@science.doe.gov.

In order to receive the proper notifications and materials, we suggest that each team register no later than January 15, 2026.

Yes. If the team consists of people from different states, or even regions, the team will represent the state of the Supervising Adult (youth teams), Lead Educator (educator teams) or community/elementary group leader (elementary teams).

Track 3 is specifically for educators, so students will not be part of a team competing in Track 3.

The Supervising Adult for each team will submit the project in the PeerNet platform. You may edit the submission or delete the submission and start over within PeerNet until the deadline passes.

If your PDF submission includes links to a video or other artifact on the cloud, you may edit the video or artifact and keep the same access link at any point until the submission deadline. If your changes require that you update the access link, you will need to edit your pdf and replace it within PeerNet.

The youth and educators who create the projects for the Challenge will maintain the intellectual property rights of the work for their project submissions. The participants grant to the U.S. Government a non-exclusive license to publish, share, display, or distribute the submitted projects to promote the Challenge, showcase innovation, or educate the public. See Section XV of the Official Rules.

There is no maximum word count, but there is a maximum size to the PDF submission. The PDF document can be no larger than 50 MB and no more than 10 pages in length, using 12-point (or larger) font size.

When your team submits your project, you will click a box stating that the project began after July 30 and that it was originally created by team members solely for the Challenge.

Projects submitted for Track III (a) are only about teaching AI in the educators’ classrooms. Projects for Track III (b) include creating new, or building on current, AI tools to be used by educators to help them teach content to their students, manage their classrooms, or complete administrative tasks.

Educators and Supervising Adults (no one under the age of 18) may “Schedule a Meeting with an Amazon expert” on this page. No one under the age of 18 may attend any meeting by themselves. Offenders will be disqualified.

No, in addition to free and age-appropriate online resources, resources are being provided by our partners to support all participants. Participants are able to complete the Challenge at no cost.

In addition to the Guiding Questions, participants can review the President’s Executive Orders for other priorities.

No. Participants are free to design their submission however they would like, AS LONG AS the requirements on this page are fulfilled. We suggest that teams review the Guidebook, especially pages 10-12, when preparing their PDFs.

When teams submit their proposals, they are completing the Challenge. All team members who submit eligible and compliant submissions will receive a Presidential Certification of Completion. During the submission process, the team will be able to choose to enter their submission into the Challenge Competition. Eligible and compliant submissions entered into the Challenge Competition will be scored by at least three judges. These scores will be used to determine the state champions, who will be eligible to compete for the regional championships.

Sure! You can use any tool you want to create your Track I poster. It can be digital or physical.

Not necessarily. It is possible to complete the challenge entirely digitally. However, you can have physical pieces for your project if you would like. You will submit the physical items to the challenge as videos or photos.

Upon registering, you don’t choose a track. The Supervising Adult of your team will indicate the track when your project is submitted.

Yes, it is possible to switch tracks after submitting to one track. The track for your project will be selected when the Supervising Adult submits it in PeerNet. If you decide to change the track you wish to compete in, the Supervising Adult will need to update the selections in the submission form on PeerNet prior to the project submission deadline.

You need to provide a video or demonstration of your AI tool. If your demonstration is not in the form of a video, it is feasible that you would complete Track 2 without providing a video. There is no requirement that the code be shared, but if seeing the code will strengthen your project, you can provide a link to your code in the PDF document.

You are welcome to use any AI tool that you’d like!

Yes! Have all team members added by January 15. Signed consent forms will be needed for all new team members.

It depends on how you plan to showcase your tool to the judges. If you record a video of your tool to include in your PDF, it could be hosted locally and not available to the public. If you want the judges to be able to use your tool, you will need to have it available to them in a format where they can access it.

The judges will be AI experts and educators from across the country. Many work for National Laboratories, technology companies, and colleges. If you are interested in becoming a judge, complete this form.

You will receive a link to submit your project via the PeerNet website. To complete the submission, you will need:

• Project title
• Project description (max 500 characters)
• PDF with team authored narrative and supplemental media

You will be asked to confirm:

• Certification of originality
• Submission of project into the Challenge Competition

The link to the PeerNet website to submit your project will be emailed to all registered Supervising Adults once consent forms have been received for each team member, including the Supervising Adults. Supervising Adults can submit the project at any point in time until the registration deadline of January 20, 2026 at 11:59 p.m. local time.

Tracks I and II are for student-driven projects. Students should be developing ideas, learning new skills, and completing the work required for the project. The Supervising Adult should help students to develop skills through direct instruction, providing online resources, or connecting them to mentors. Supervising Adults should also be mindful about age-restrictions of AI Tools and monitor students’ use of AI tools to ensure student privacy and safety.

Things that may disqualify a team from this Challenge include but are not limited to: 1) not meeting eligibility requirements; 2) academic dishonesty such as not disclosing the use of an AI tool; and 3) editing your video, poster, or other project components after the submission deadline. Challenge management reserves the right to disqualify a team for other reasons not explicitly listed if deemed necessary to ensure fairness, integrity, or compliance with the Challenge rules and guidelines.

At this time, there are no tools that are prohibited.