In order to participate in the Nittany AI Challenge, you must be a current Penn State student.

What is a Prototype?

A prototype is what happens when you give form to your product idea. It's something tangible, not just in your head. It is often used to demonstrate and validate ideas, gather feedback, and identify potential issues early in the development process. A prototype for the Nittany AI Challenge should demonstrate a functional, tangible representation of your team’s proposed solution. While the prototype does not have to be a fully polished or production-ready product, it should clearly showcase the core features and value of your idea. Here are the main expectations:

·        What to Submit (Documentation)

• Project Team Name: A concise and descriptive name for your team.
• Team Members: Each team member must create a Devpost account and join the project on Devpost. 
• Problem/Opportunity Statement: A clear summary (up to 300 words) explaining the problem and method used to address that problem. This should demonstrate that you clearly understand the problem or opportunity you are addressing with AI. 
• MVP Use Case: Provide a sample use case (up to 300 words) for the tool. Describe how someone will use the MVP functionality you intend to build and the benefits or impact the MVP will provide.
• Data Availability: Detail the data sources leveraged within the prototype as well as the data sources necessary if this project moved to the MVP phase (up to 300 words). If available, please detail the location and availablity of the data sources and/or the plan for collecting the necessary data. Remember that while we can provide some assistance with finding data sources, finding and gaining access to those sources is the team's responsibility. 
• Technology: Provide a technical description (up to 350 words) of the approach the team used to achieve it's proposed goal, including the ways in which the selected AI platforms are used within the prototype and how the team anticipates using those and other services in the MVP phase. Specifically, the documentation should include a slist of the components of the selected AI platforms that are leveraged in the ptototype, any additional components that may be leveraged in the development of the MVP, and additional services that may be necessary for continued development. 

What to Submit (Video)

All teams submitting a prototype for review are required to submit video demonstrations of their working prototypes. The videos must:

• be no more than 5 minutes in length.
• explain the problem you want to solve and why it's important.
• how you plan to solve it.
• what is your solution and what is unique about your solution (why it is different from your competitors).
• the intent, goals, and potential impact of the solution.
• demonstrate the basic, working functionality of the protoype.

To view previous submissions by Challenge winning teams, please view our website.