Lakeridge students roar with victory at state Presidential AI Challenge
Published 5:30 pm Thursday, April 16, 2026
When neighbors and fellow Lakeridge Elementary School students Jacob Yip and Henry Guo saw that their classrooms became extremely noisy after recess and lunch, they brought AI into the picture to help their teachers tone things down.
Enter the Lion Noise Meter, a “Ready Up AI” app that teachers can load onto their computers and it aids them in managing classroom volume. When the app hits a certain noise level, for example, it reads, “Let’s whisper, not shout.”
The duo interviewed their two teachers for a project the students were working on and asked the instructors if they wanted a classwork designer, a grader bot or a noise meter. The noise meter — named after Lakeridge’s mascot — was the clear choice and it’s being utilized in both classrooms.
Yip and Guo’s app garnered some major recognition outside of the classroom as they were named Washington state winners in the elementary track two division in the 2026 Presidential AI Challenge. The national STEM competition featured 2,500 teams presenting their projects. Next up, the locals’ app will land at the regional level; if they win there, the national finals await in Washington, DC.
Yip, a fourth-grader, said they built the app with the Gemini and Copilot tools to help the instructors teach and the students to learn more. They discussed working on the app last November and built it in just over a week in December, said Yip’s father, Matthew.
Jacob said the teachers were receptive to the idea and told the boys that it helped quiet the kids down.
Guo, a third-grader, said it was a fun experience working alongside Jacob and that classmates asked tons of questions about how they built the app, what AI is and if they received any money from winning the state competition. No money came their way, just recognition for now.
“(It’s) very exciting and I feel like me and Jacob did a very good job,” Guo said. “We like to help people (on) things that they don’t really know and need help on.”
Matthew and Guo’s dad Shijun helped the boys schedule the teacher interviews and provided a computer with the AI tools on it. The parents were there to answer any questions the boys had about the building process.
“Most of the time, we want to use this as a learning experience for the two of them,” said Matthew, adding that the boys built the app all by themselves. “It’s not really just about competition. It’s really helping them actually realize what AI can do.”
Shijun said he’s excited about what the boys accomplished, from working with the teachers at the outset all the way to completing the final product.
“It’s a whole experience. It’s going to be beneficial for the kids, enable them to learn more and move forward with their life,” Shijun said.
Matthew feels that as the boys’ classmates learned about AI and how they built the app, the other students might be driven to do something similar in the future.
Jacob is ecstatic about winning the state competition: “We felt good because we tried our best and we were super excited when all of our hard work paid off.”
