• Sept. 6, 2018

    USC team wins award from international AI competition

    WAICY 2018 A team of five Upper St. Clair students recently won the Multimedia Excellence Award for Outstanding Visual Design at the inaugural World Artificial Intelligence Competition for Youth (WAICY 2018). The team was comprised of Luke An, a fifth grader at Boyce Middle School; Sam An and Aaron Jiang, third graders at Streams Elementary; Ava Liu, a fourth grader at Streams; and Cynthia Shen, a third grader from Baker Elementary.

    The event, sponsored by Carnegie Mellon University and the WholeRen Education LLC, was held July 28, 2018, on CMU’s campus.

    The week of workshops and final competition provided students with the opportunity to learn about artificial intelligence programming. Using WholeRen's "AI-In-A-Box," a toolkit developed with input from CMU alumni and faculty, each team designed and executed projects that answered a simple question: How can AI change our lives?

    One hundred thirty students between the ages of 4 and 18 from as far away as China, Sweden and England, competed in person on 30 teams. An additional 20 teams competed remotely from around the world. The Upper St. Clair team was one of five that was recognized for its performance in the competition.

    “Though a small accomplishment, we believe this award showcases the outstanding learning environment at Upper St. Clair that focuses on nurturing curiosity, encouraging exploration and promoting doing good for the community and the natural environment,” Annie Cui, mom of Aaron Jiang, said.