Update 6/11/2026
A team of fourth- and fifth-graders from Alcoa Intermediate School travelled to Washington, D.C., this month to win the national championship of the Presidential AI Challenge, a White House initiative aimed at building artificial intelligence skills in students nationwide.
The team, which has worked together since January, advanced through state and regional rounds with a Google Gemini-based homework helper that guides students through problems without giving away answers and learns each user’s habits to deliver customized assignment reminders.
A national win brings $10,000 to the school.
Ryker Cochran, Ayden Taverna, Jacob Chaloux, Aaron Gallagher and Emma Conner are competing in the elementary track, one of three age categories. Their regional entry was judged in the “idea” track, but the project has since drawn deeper institutional backing. Alcoa City Schools is partnering with the University of Tennessee on a $50,000 grant application that, if awarded, would fund full development of the app.
“We’ve dived deeper into more of AI technology and terminology,” said Hope McDonald, the Alcoa Intermediate teacher who oversees the team. “We’re learning about guardrails that need to be set within the app, goes and no-goes, and figuring out how we’re going to know the app is successful versus when there’s things we need to change and fix.”
The trip itself is the result of a rule change made after the regional competition.
The Presidential AI Challenge originally required only the supervising teacher to attend the national event in the elementary track, but judges were impressed enough by the young competitors’ presentations to expand the format. McDonald and Emily Holtz, the UT liaison on the project, will travel with four students. The competition covers airfare, lodging and meals.
The four are giving up parts of their summer break — including golf camp, swim and color guard commitments — to keep rehearsing and refining their presentation, McDonald pointed out.
McDonald, a longtime Alcoa teacher with two decades of teaching experience, said she came to the project without an AI background and has learned alongside the students. The team’s early sessions focused on what AI is and isn’t, including its biases, environmental costs and tendency to deliver incorrect answers.
“AI is not going anywhere,” she said. “Instead of just avoiding it, we have to learn how to use it properly in the classroom so that we are still creating problem-solvers, we’re still creating thinkers, and we’re also not destroying the environment that they’re going to grow up to live in.”
The team’s profile has grown beyond the competition. A UT documentary crew from Land Grant Films has produced a special on the students, and the group has been invited to address Tennessee legislators at a July AI conference.
McDonald said she and Anne Ho of UT, who works with the AI Tennessee Initiative, are exploring an ongoing after-school club to continue the work and possibly expand the program.
