Competitions
The Levangie Laboratories' Awesome Inventor Competition
This competition invites current high school students to harness the power of AI to develop personas that can act as a problem solver for everyday issues for all walks of life. Participants will design an innovative AI agent using the HuggingChat Assistant feature. The agent should be a creative, goal-oriented inventor that can concoct inventions to address modern needs in day-to-day life for high schoolers (e.g., planning for the future; balancing school, life, and work; coping or solving issues at home). The agent should also be skilled at detailing how an invention is suited to address the need. We will assess your AI agents on their creativity, practicality, descriptive accuracy, ethical considerations, their ability to motivate the value of their inventions and their inventions' societal value, impact on community, and improvement of quality of life. This challenge is meant to not only foster hands-on learning but also to prepare you for future opportunities in AI and develop tools that may be used by other high schoolers to improve their quality of life.
Please register below by April 30, 2025
Guidelines
Create an assistant on HuggingChat here: https://huggingface.co/chat/assistants
Test out your assistant's suggestions and fine-tune it to improve its performance. After the registration deadline you will receive an email to attach the linked URL to your assistant (if it is public) or attach the materials used to create your AI agent (if it is private).
Video Tutorial
We will ask your agent to design inventions to solve a set of scenarios on problems facing high schoolers. Your AI agent will be placed in a single-elimination bracket-based tournament. The winner of each round will be determined by our own AI model's assessment of your AI agent's performance and the public's opinion based on social media polls. If your agent is one of the top 10 highest performing, then you will be invited to present in front of an esteemed group of judges. Presentations may be virtual, but all finalists are invited to come to campus to present their work. The judges will select the winner from among the 10 finalists based on the technical understanding shown in the efforts of training your agent among other criteria to be described after determination of the 10 finalists. Each finalist will have 10-15 minutes to present, followed by a 5-10 minute Q&A session with the judging panel.
The 10 finalists will receive a certificate from Levangie Laboratories. The overall winner will get the opportunity to create a business using their developed agent as a tool to advise high school students (and perhaps others) in collaboration with the Wolff Center for Entrepreneurship and also receive special acknowledgement from the University of Houston.
You are welcome to compete in teams of up to 4 members.
Timeline
Registration deadline: April 30, 2025
AI agent submission deadline: May 16, 2025
Tournament begins: May 19, 2025
Finalists selected: May 28, 2025
Finalist competition: June TBD, 2025
Contact Haowei Yang (hyang38@cougarnet.uh.edu) with any questions.
FAQs
Do I need prior experience with AI or programming to participate?
No prior experience with AI or programming is required. The HuggingChat Assistant feature is designed to be user-friendly and accessible to beginners. We encourage students of all technical backgrounds to participate. What's most important is your creativity in designing an effective problem-solving agent.
What exactly are we creating for this competition?
You'll be designing an AI agent using the HuggingChat Assistant feature. This agent should act as a problem solver and inventor that can develop inventions addressing everyday issues faced by high school students.
Who is eligible to participate in this competition?
The competition is open to current high school students. As stated in the guidelines, you can participate individually or in teams of up to 4 members.
What exactly are we creating for this competition?
You'll be designing an AI agent using the HuggingChat Assistant feature. This agent should act as a problem solver and inventor that can develop inventions addressing everyday issues faced by high school students.
What kinds of problems should our AI agent be able to solve?
Your agent should address modern needs in day-to-day life for high schoolers, such as planning for the future, balancing school/life/work, and coping with or solving issues at home.
What criteria will be used to judge our AI agents?
According to the guidelines, agents will be assessed on creativity, practicality, descriptive accuracy, ethical considerations, ability to motivate the value of their inventions, societal value, impact on community, and improvement of quality of life.
How does the tournament structure work?
Your AI agent will be placed in a single-elimination bracket-based tournament. Winners of each round will be determined by Levangie Laboratories' own AI model's assessment and public opinion gathered through social media polls.
What happens if we make it to the finals?
The top 10 highest-performing agents will advance to the finals, where participants will present in front of judges. Presentations can be virtual, but finalists are invited to campus. Each finalist will have 10-15 minutes to present followed by a 5-10 minute Q&A session.
What are the prizes for winning?
All 10 finalists will receive a certificate from Levangie Laboratories. The overall winner gets the opportunity to create a business using their agent as a tool to advise high school students in collaboration with the Wolff Center for Entrepreneurship, plus special acknowledgment from the University of Houston.
How do we submit our AI agent?
After registering by April 30, 2025, you'll receive an email with instructions to either attach the URL to your public assistant or submit the materials used to create your private AI agent. The final submission deadline is May 16, 2025.
What specific technical criteria will be used to select the winner from among the finalists?
The judges will evaluate the technical understanding shown in training your agent. Additional criteria for selecting the winner from among the 10 finalists will be provided after the finalists are determined.
Is this competition only focused on creating the AI agent, or do we need to develop actual inventions?
The competition focuses on creating an AI agent that can design inventions to solve high school problems. Your task is to develop the AI persona that can generate and describe these inventions - not to physically create the inventions themselves.