- Orange County Public Schools and UF’s EQuIPD launched a new AI contest at Boone High School, where students built a Python‑powered smart‑city power system.
- To understand how much energy their virtual city is consuming, students designed and coded an AI-regression model to predict power demands.
- The contest aims to turn students from tech consumers into creators, with plans to expand the program to additional schools.
In a pilot program led by the University of Florida and Orange County Public Schools, Orlando high school students are designing an artificial intelligence modeling system to predict a virtual city’s energy demands.
Part of the EQuIPD Grant program from UF’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering, or MSE, the partnership this spring launched the Quick Start: Smart City AI Contest for students at William Rennick Boone High School.
Starting in April, the high school students embarked on a four-week journey of Python-based machine learning, or ML, targeting objectives that put their programming skills to the test as they designed an AI-based smart city power management system.
To better understand how much energy their virtual city is consuming, students designed and coded an AI-regression model to predict the demands of power at certain times of the day.
By processing real data sets, they developed an AI-classification model to determine the priority of different power users. Once the students trained their ML regression and classification models and evaluated their accuracy, they wrote a detailed report and prepared a presentation for the design showcase, justifying the efficacy of their AI models.
Michael Martucci, Silver Pines Academy assistant principal, spearheaded the initiative to bring a new AI contest to Orange County students. He hopes the successful pilot can be expanded to more schools and students.
“Experiential AI learning turns students from consumers of technology into creators of change, equipping them with the skills and mindset to build the future rather than simply inherit it,” said Martucci.
This year, Quick Start: Orange County featured a new curriculum led by Nancy Ruzycki, Ph.D., MSE Instructional Professor. The program was designed to integrate conceptual knowledge of computer programming into prevailing machine learning practices. Boone students learned how the ML models operate by completing the Jupyter Notebooks authored by Ruzycki, which guided them through coding procedures and answered discussion questions in the context of the smart city.
“We bring up real engineering, science and math practices,” said Ruzycki. “The goal is to bring the experiences to them and make them accessible.”
Two undergraduate students and EQuIPD members, Rickoy Cunningham (FIU) and Alicia Ellis (UF), helped review the contest materials. Program Manager Evan Dolling collaborated with Ruzycki to create the contest storyline and objectives.
“The world is changing faster than ever as AI becomes such a powerful tool across all sectors,” said Dolling about developing the contest challenges. “Exposing high schoolers to these applications can empower them to make their ideas and interests a part of this change.”
The contest was made possible by a UCF QuickStart grant from the U.S. Department of Energy, Orange County Government, UCF Mixed Emerging Technology Integration Lab (METIL), UF EQuIPD and Orange County Public Schools. The QuickStart grant, as does the Orange County Government grant, focuses on a STEM workforce pipeline by advancing student training in emerging tech (e.g., AI and cybersecurity).
Boone AP Computer Science teacher James Mitchell encouraged his students to participate in the contest.
“They really enjoyed the experience and being challenged the way they were in a context more than just the classroom. It was a difficult time of the year, but many of them put a lot of time and effort into the project,” Mitchell said.
The top four teams gathered on May 22 for the inaugural Quick Start Design Showcase at the Mixed Emerging Technology Integration Lab on University of Central Florida’s campus, where the teams proposed their AI system designs to a panel of judges.
These contests, curated by Ruzycki, Martucci and the EQuIPD team, strive to empower future generations of computer scientists and engineers to approach real-world energy problems with data-driven, predictive AI models.
“When students use AI to tackle real-world challenges, they learn that innovation is not just about technology, it is about using knowledge, collaboration, and imagination to make a meaningful impact,” said Martucci.
