AI Challenge projects: Bright minds, bright futures

Six months after the final event of the AI in STEM Challenge in June 2025, we were curious to hear how the impressive projects presented on Berlin continued. As the teachers of the three winning projects from Germany, Poland and the UK prepare to travel to the European Science on Stage festival in Lithuania, we took a look back at the inspiring ideas that were showcased at the competition final and were delighted to find out that they are very much alive and thriving!

The first-place winners, team "Intelligent Nose" from Archigymnasium Soest in Germany, continue their work with the school's digitised beehive, harvesting honey and data at the same time. Their project won another award this summer, and the students wrote an article in English for their school's website that provides wonderful insights into the "Story of Archi's Intelligent Nose" – emphasising that the focus of the event in Berlin was "to meet other interesting students from Portugal, Spain, Turkey, UK, Poland, Greece and Italy", and "to be part of a community of diverse people having different skills, interests, hopes and dreams for the world they live in."

The runner-up team, "Predictive AI saves our planet" from the Thomas Hardye School in Dorchester, UK, equally continued to refine their award-winning project about an AI application for preventing illegal fishing. As Sophie Cradock, one of two students involved, writes: "In the last few months, we have been steadily progressing the project. Firstly, we are developing the code and having weekly meetings with a post-graduate student who is working on spatially mapping malaria. She is helping to structure our approach to developing the code. Next, we have met with a commercial director who has given us some advice on how to make our project appeal to investors and statistics we need to show too. Lastly, we are spending time researching the best approach to creating and designing an app, ensuring the user gets the best experience."

You can read more about the PAI Fishing project and other finalist projects focused on sustainabiliy and inclusion on this page dedicated to AI in STEM: Inspiring Classroom Projects.

Team EcoGuard from Poland, the third-place winners, have been working steadily on their own innovative app intended to monitor and ultimately improve the air quality in their hometown. You can follow their progress on the EcoGuard website and even download and test their application for Android and Apple devices. 

As Sophie and Harry from the British team wrote in their project description, the AI in STEM Challenge provided "a chance for us to not just learn from textbooks but also be part of a team trying to make a meaningful difference. By integrating technology with environmental conservation, we’re learning skills that will be useful in our future careers and contributing to a cause we deeply care about."

We wish all the teams the best of success and are proud to see the impact that their projects promise to make!

The AI in STEM Challenge was a project by Science on Stage Germany, organised with the help of Science on Stage Europe members and supported by Amazon Future Engineer. Make sure to subscribe to our newsletter to hear about future competitions for student-teacher teams and other Science on Stage projects.