High School Student Spotlight Projects

Join us at the High School Student Spotlight, hosted by Explore: Pittsburgh Tech Week, presented by Google & Citizens, and powered by Duolingo. This feature celebrates the creativity and innovation of the next generation of change makers.

High school students from across Pennsylvania are showcasing projects and ideas that explore the power of STEM, AI, and technology to create real-world impact. These exhibits reflect the curiosity, collaboration, and bold thinking that define the future of work and learning.

Discover the projects below.

AAINS (Adaptive AI-driven Neurofeedback Solution)

: Focus is hard, especially for neurodivergent individuals like those with ADHD. AAINS is a personalized, AI-driven adaptive neurofeedback system that strengthens attention. It uses an EEG to track beta waves (active focus), and unlike reward-based models, this system uses aversive auditory feedback. The AI dynamically adjusts tasks and sound based on real-time brain data for optimal training. Experimental results suggest a new path to cognitive resilience.

AI Ethical Compass

: AI Ethical Compass is an interactive web platform designed by students to teach K–12 learners ethical reasoning in AI through real-world case studies and a 4-step reflection process. With features like AI moderation, teacher dashboards, gamified lessons, and multilingual accessibility, it bridges the education gap in AI literacy. A finalist in the ISTE + ASCD AI Innovators Challenge, it empowers responsible digital citizenship globally.

AI in Agriculture and Farming Solutions

: Our Project will focus on the use of AI in agricultural and farming solutions. We have ideas for innovating sustainable solutions for farming that utilize AI and assist farmers in creating more prosperous harvests

Asset-Based Learning Environments

: Students in the ABLE program collaborated in international teams to explore global issues through AI-driven research and design. Using artificial intelligence, they analyzed data, generated insights, and created innovative solutions aimed at addressing sustainability, equity, and other worldwide challenges. This project highlights the power of global collaboration and AI to inspire meaningful change.

Bridge to the Future

: Winners of the 2024 Steelers Stem Powering Pittsburgh Challenge: Bridge to the Future proposes a hybrid solar/kinetic tile system to generate clean energy from the city's bridges. The presentation includes a 5'x2' scale model made of mostly recycled materials, a tri-fold showing methodology, a slideshow presentation, and a dossier with scientific and financial details. This team earned a $3,000 grant to Blackhawk High School, and was honored on-field before a December 2024 Steelers game.

Bridging the Gap Through Student Led Solutions: Promoting Digital Equity in Education

: The digital divide affects Pennsylvania students who lack reliable internet and devices, which limit educational and career opportunities. Caused by socioeconomic and geographic barriers, the gap has widened with technological developments. Our project proposes student-led solutions such as technology drives, workshops, and club partnerships to expand technology access, reduce divisions, and help underprivileged communities acquire the resources they need to succeed in a more digital future.

CloseBoost

: CloseBoost turns complex CRM data into actionable sales insights through AI-powered analytics and intelligent automation. We help sales teams outreach customers, identify opportunities, optimize their pipeline, and close more deals with the precision of artificial intelligence.

Conservation Genetics Used as an Implement for Student-Led Research

: Conservation genetics provides the perfect medium for authentic STEM-centered student learning. The Seneca Valley Center for Biotechnology provides an environment where students can exercise creative problem-solving skills to develop projects under the conservation umbrella. Explorations include technologies to investigate field-collected DNA, bioinformatics to assist in metabarcoding fish and salamander populations, and qPCR determination of invasive carp and rare hellbender salamanders.

Detecting Breast Cancer Using AI

: We attempted to build a machine learning model that can detect the presence of cancerous cells in patients’ breast tissue using ultrasound imaging. To accomplish this objective, we utilized a convolutional neural network, abbreviated as CNN for the remainder of the paper, and used cross-entropy loss, accuracy, and recall as evaluation metrics. Through hyperparameter fine-tuning, we were able to construct a model with an accuracy of over 90% for both training and testing sets.

Furniture of the Future

: “Furniture of the Future” is a project of The Shaler Area School District Sustainability Club. Student leaders partnered with reimagined recycling, a local NGO that recovers #5 plastic, which otherwise would have been sent to the landfill. Students programmed a CNC machine to cut out creative shapes from recycled plastic sheeting to be used as tabletops, with outdated lamp posts as table legs.“Furniture of Future” can be made from excess materials all around us!

How AI & Automations Can Help Our School

: Using Robotics/Automations to help make our school a cleaner place and freeing up the demanding schedules of our Custodial team. Secondary, identifying methods to counter the growing Vaping problems in our school

Human Centered AI as a Pathway to Reenvision K-12 Education

: The Human-Centered AI as a Pathway to Re-Envisioning K–12 Education initiative empowers students to design and apply AI ethically, creatively, and collaboratively to improve the human experience. Through hands-on design, students explore AI fundamentals, human-centered design, and problem solving. This showcase highlights their original AI-driven solutions to reimagine education.

Living Wall

: The Living Wall is a vertical gardening system featuring removable pots connected to a water reservoir through tubing. The design allows water to flow into each pot, ensuring consistent hydration and reducing waste. This project demonstrates a sustainable, space-saving method for growing plants in both indoor and outdoor.

OWLEE

: Its a project that assists disabled individuals, senior citizens and mentally challenged people.

PAT and MAT

: Logan is a student entrepreneur specializing in 3D printing innovation. His award-winning PAT (Package Access Tool) is a multifunctional handheld cutter designed for package opening, label peeling, and tag removal, currently patent pending and a National TSA 1st place winner. His latest invention, MAT (Magnetic Arrangement Tray), is a portable, belt-clippable tray that organizes and secures small metallic items for convenient access.;

Rest IQ

: Rest IQ is a universal smart pillowcase designed to enhance sleep quality and create less drowsy wake-ups. It monitors sleep patterns while minimizing nighttime technology overstimulation by reducing distractions from devices. Combining comfort with intelligent sleep tracking, Rest IQ helps users achieve deeper, more restorative rest and improved overall sleep health. This invention solves the problem of a decrease in productivity in middle school students.

Sewickley Community Center Sustainablilty Project

: The project supports Sewickley Food Pantry and Community Center by developing a solar panel plan with expert help and fundraising efforts. It also studies local plants in summer 2025 to assess stormwater absorption using AI tools. Data on species and abundance will guide recommendations for planting to improve water management and conservation, with expert input and environmental modeling to maximize ecological benefits.

StreetSafe

: We developed a secure tethering device for homeless individuals to prevent theft during vulnerable moments. Through partnerships with local homeless organizations, we identified that theft rates among homeless are significantly higher than those of housed individuals, with entire backpacks often stolen while sleeping in shelters or tents. Our device, StreetSafe, provides a simple, effective solution by securing the backpack to a fixed location, deterring theft and protecting personal belongings.

Student Sustainability Design Challenge

: Highlands High School students developed their Spanish language skills and global competence while designing sustainability projects with local and international partners. Spanish III students designed model sustainable homes for an Ecuadorian town with craft materials and Hummingbird robots. CHS Spanish IV students worked on United Nations Sustainable Development Goals through a project to improve mental health in their school.

Sustainability Consultancy using Green AI

: The project is a sustainability consultancy that focuses on audit & reporting but also integration of sustainable business practices, holistic implementation, mindset shift, & ongoing support to ultimately make the business more sustainable, less expenses, and more revenue. Since every business is different, understanding the brand and their processes is best done using specialized GPTs that are powered by green data centers, energy-efficient hardware, and an advanced cooling system.

Using Different Machine Learning Techniques to Accurately Detect Coral Bleaching Events

: Coral bleaching occurs when corals are stressed by different environmental changes, causing them to expel Zooxanthellae, a symbiotic algae. If the bleached coral is left untreated for too long, they become incredibly vulnerable to starvation and disease. Detection is a major part of mitigating widespread bleaching. This study investigated three different deep learning models: Haar Cascade Classifiers, YOLOv8 and Mask R-CNN to try and accurately and efficiently detect coral bleaching.

Woodland Hills Multi-District Student Summit

: The Student Summit is focused on bringing together students from urban, suburban, and rural school districts to focus on UNITY in a period of division.It is vital to our summit that we have students from urban, rural, and suburban communities. Giving students not only a voice but the ability to interact with children who have different cultural, social, and environmental experiences is pivotal to the project. Through their words and actions we can initiate change in a culturally divided society.