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Two Year 9 boys have won an international artificial intelligence competition – the only UK winners across all age groups.

Paarth Aggarwal and Nittant Moudgil took gold in the middle school category of the fifth annual World Artificial Intelligence Competition for Youth (WAICY), beating teams from Australia, Greece, India and Indonesia.

They impressed judges with their project to help local councils mitigate the impact of fly-tipping, which combined an AI-powered app and a camera powered by a Raspberry Pi computer.

Headmaster Neil Enright said: “AI is likely to transform all our lives in the future and it is good to see QE pupils at the forefront of this revolution. My congratulations go to Nittant and Paarth both for their success and for the combination of intelligence, inventiveness and application that they demonstrated in developing and presenting this project.”

The pair were mentored by Paarth Aggarwal’s father, Saurabh. Mr Aggarwal works for Cognizant, the American multinational IT services and consulting company, as an Associate Director in its UK Artificial Intelligence & Analytics Advisory and Consulting team.

They were among more than 1,000 entrants in the competition, which attracted interest from young people in more than 30 countries around the world: for example, the winners of the high school category were from the USA and those of the elementary school category from the UAE.

Paarth and Nittant won their medals and certificate for “outstanding performance”. Their project was designed to detect objects that are typically the subject of fly-tipping. They aimed to reduce the deleterious impact of fly-tipping on the environment and to help local authorities optimise their resources so that they can plan better and clean up more effectively.

Nittant explained: “This was definitely a unique endeavour for me, as I haven’t taken part in an AI competition before. Paarth and I decided to approach the challenge by seeing problems that we could fix and innovate solutions for, and we had recently started noticing quite a lot of fly-tipping in our local area. We found it to be a widespread issue that affects many communities and has negative environmental and economic impacts, so we decided on making an app that uses an ML model to detect waste and report it to the local council. Winning the gold medal was a pleasant surprise, but we had worked hard on it, so it was a welcome one.”

WAICY is sponsored by a number of international commercial and educational organisations. The competition judges look first for the effective use of AI in entries and expect entrants to demonstrate a thorough understanding of what AI means. Competitors are expected to be able to demonstrate their understanding by answering questions about the technical aspects of their projects, including any coding that these involved.

After learning of his gold award, Paarth said: “This competition encouraged me to develop the critical thinking in me and helped to hone my skills in AI. It was an exhilarating opportunity to experience the competition on such a global platform.”

In fact, he said, taking part had helped him overcome his fear of getting involved in such large-scale competitions. “I would highly encourage everyone to participate, persevere and learn in all competitions, whether it is on a large or small scale.”

Deloitte innovation specialist Ed Greig demonstrated robots on his visit to QE – but told the boys to focus on the nature of any problem, not the technology involved in the solution.

Mr Greig, who works for Deloitte Digital (part of the global Deloitte financial services and consultancy group) as its Chief Disruptor, made it through the snow to give a lunchtime lecture about his work, which involves working with new technologies to understand how they can benefit clients.

He told the boys: “The mantra of my team is to fall in love with the problem, not the solution.”

He stressed the importance of understanding the true nature of problems, suggesting that invariably they are really about cultural change rather than technology – even if technology might be involved in the solution.

He gave the real-life example of a prosthetic arm for a six-year-old girl, where the issue was not merely the functionality of the limb, but making sure the girl would actually wear it by ensuring its design was fashionable and appealing, so that she would want to put it on.

There were now so many more opportunities to create and replicate experiences than even ten years ago, he said.

He gave demonstrations of both AI-powered software robots and hardware robots: having brought along a robot dog, he made it climb the stairs leading to the stage in the hall in QE’s Main Building.

He also sent a robot around Deloitte’s offices looking for people to say ‘hello’ to members of his QE audience – a task complicated by the fact that, as a result of the snow, the offices were virtually empty!

Mr Greig, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, read Politics, Philosophy and Economics at the University of Warwick. After running his own web design business, he joined Deloitte in 2009 as a Technology, Creative and User Experience Consultant in 2009.

In his current role, his work involves demonstrating the benefits of new technologies in a tangible way by building proofs-of-concept and minimum viable products.

After winning plaudits at Harvard for his performance in a 24-hour ‘hackathon’, 16-year-old Soumil Sahjpall’s entry in an online follow-up event took third place, beating off competition from university teams worldwide.

During his trip to the US, Soumil rubbed shoulders with Ivy League students as he developed blockchain software for cryptocurrency TRON in a coding marathon. His app earned him an ‘honourable mention’ from the judges, who placed him in joint-ninth place out of 55 teams.

He then entered the TRON International Hackathon 3.0, an extension of the in-person event, which featured more than a thousand competitors from across the globe. Soumil said he was proud that his third place was the result of a vote by “a cryptocurrency community of thousands”.

Assistant Head (Pupil Destinations) James Kane said: “Our warm congratulations go to Soumil. He showed significant commitment in entering these competitions in the first place; he then demonstrated great skill and put in a huge amount of hard work to achieve international success against competitors several years older than him.”

TRON, a leading cryptocurrency with a current market value of $5 billion, set a brief to develop a dAPP, or “decentralized app” – that is, software that runs on the blockchain, as opposed to on a server hosted by technology giants such as Amazon or Microsoft.

The in-person hackathon at Harvard in Cambridge, Massachusetts, featured a 24-hour period dedicated solely to developing the dAPP. In addition, Soumil attended workshops, and there was time allocated to presenting and pitching to judges.

Because of his age, even taking part represented a success: the organisers cleared him to compete, based on his performance in previous hackathons. Altogether, 55 projects were presented by some 200 young people, most of them six or seven years older than Soumil.

“I found out about this hackathon with relatively short notice, so I competed solo,” he said. “I was relatively confident in my abilities and knew I’d still be having lots of fun, so that was all right. The average team size was around four members – with a maximum of five – so I was at a disadvantage.”

Although delighted with the honourable mention – one of only ten available – for his presentation, and the $500 cash prize that went with it, he said “the real take-away from this is the experience and the people I met.” These included students from Harvard, Yale, MIT and Boston’s Northeastern University.

In the online event, the TRON International Hackathon 3.0, Soumil submitted his project, which he called ‘Project Pledger’, under the ‘academy’ track, designated for university-level students and his work was voted third.

Two sixth-formers have been named as Arkwright Scholars after successfully demonstrating their prowess as engineers.

Darren Lee and Yash Patel laboured for months through a gruelling selection process for the scholarships, which will now provide them with financial and mentoring support during their A-level studies.

Head of Technology Michael Noonan said: “My congratulations go to both Yash and Darren: these scholarships are not lightly awarded, and the pair’s success is a reflection of their assiduous approach to the process, of their presentation skills, and, of course, of the excellent standard of their engineering.”

The long-running Arkwright programme is run by the national Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics (STEM) education charity, The Smallpeice Trust, and aims to inspire future leaders in engineering. This year, only 300 candidates were successful out of 1,423 applicants.

The benefits of the scholarships include a £600 personal financial award, £400 for the scholar’s school, mentoring, industry-based ‘Connect Days’ and invitations to university-based VIP receptions.

Darren and Yash, both of Year 12, were presented with certificates at an awards ceremony held at the Institution of Engineering and Technology in London.

As part of his application, Darren gave a presentation which covered the design and manufacture of  ‘Overlap’ – a rugby lineout machine that he devised (pictured top). He also featured in his presentation his involvement with VEX Robotics at the School.

The process included an engineering aptitude test and an online interview, during which candidates had both to make a presentation and to respond to technical engineering questions.

He said: “It’s an absolute honour to receive this scholarship, recognising my engineering skills and hours of hard work I’ve put into my technology projects. I’m incredibly proud to call myself an Arkwright Scholar.

“I believe that the networking aspect of this scholarship will prove to be very beneficial. As an Arkwright Scholar, I have access to the MentorNet platform, where I can communicate, discuss and receive feedback from some of the brightest young engineering minds in the country.”

For his part, Yash says that being an Arkwright Scholar will assist him in pursuing interests such as model-making, CAD design and 3D printing out of School and will help him fund a wishlist of projects, including making movie props and designing his own model train set and an electric guitar.

“It means I will be provided with opportunities, such as work experience, Connect Days and bursary offers or further scholarships, which may not be provided to others, as I will stand out to engineering-related organisations,” said Yash. “I have become a more competitive university applicant and can build up a larger network of prominent engineers and leaders in the industry.”

HRH The Duke of Gloucester today visited QE, as the reigning Sunday Times State Secondary School of the Year prepares to celebrate its 450^th anniversary early next year.

Members of the School’s Combined Cadet Force flanked the main entrance and the senior rugby team provided a sporting backdrop as the Duke arrived for his visit, during which he marked the anniversary by planting an oak tree and by presenting a specially embroidered banner to Headmaster Neil Enright.

The visit had an eye to the future as well as the past: the Duke was given a demonstration of VEX Robotics – QE is a multi-time UK champion and was the first UK school to win a World Championship title – and even tried out driving the robots himself.

He came to QE almost exactly 90 years after another royal visit, by HRH The Prince George, Duke of Kent, who opened the new buildings – still in use as QE’s Main Building – following the School’s relocation from its historic Tudor Hall site in Wood Street, Barnet.

Following the visit, Mr Enright said: “It was a tremendous honour and my great pleasure to welcome HRH The Duke of Gloucester today. With the anniversary fast approaching, there was much to show him, including the School’s original 1573 Charter signed by Elizabeth I, our Ties through Time installation of 232 School photographs from the 1880s until comparatively modern times, and, to bring things right up to date, the robots and our new Music building, opened in May.

“The Duke showed a keen interest in everything, and I know our roboteers will be especially delighted that he was brave enough to try his hand at the controls of two of their creations.”

On his arrival, the Duke was presented to the Headmaster by Martin Russell, Representative Deputy Lieutenant of the London Borough of Barnet and a former QE parent.

He was then introduced to:

• Barrie Martin, MBE (Chairman of Governors and Chairman of the Friends of Queen Elizabeth’s)
• Nick Gaskell (Vice-Chairman of Governors)
• The three Deputy Heads: Anne Macdonald (Academic); David Ryan (Pastoral) and Tara O’Reilly (Operations)
• School Captain (head boy) Theo Mama-Kahn, and Senior Vice-Captains Ansh Jassra and Antony Yassa, all of Year 13.

The Duke was shown the charter and Royal Seal, together with original artefacts from the 1932 royal visit drawn from the School’s archives. The materials were introduced by Jenni Blackford, Curator of QE Collections and Head of Library Services, and two Year 13 boys involved in the work with the archives, Ishaan Mehta and Gabriel Gulliford.

The Headmaster then gave a formal welcome to the Duke in front of 100 selected pupils in the Main School Hall. He said: “Your Royal Highness, it is my honour and privilege to offer you the warmest welcome on behalf of the Elizabethan community…2022 has been a year full of accomplishment at the School. We have had our status as an outstanding school confirmed by Ofsted, been named State Secondary School of the Year by The Sunday Times, and opened The Friends’ Recital Hall and Music Rooms – the latest enhancement to our campus, built from the generosity of our School community. You could say it has been our annus mirabilis.”

QE’s Senior Barbershop group sang the hymn Abide with Me while the new School banner was brought into the hall by a representative of the CCF. Commissioned in advance of the 450^th anniversary service being held in Westminster Abbey on 24^th March 2023, the banner was passed to the Duke, who presented it to the Headmaster.

After visiting the Ties through Time photographic installation and enjoying the robotics in the School’s Conference Centre, the royal party headed to the new Music building to watch rehearsals for this Thursday’s Winter Concert under the watchful eye of Director of Music Ruth Partington.

Then it was back to the front of the School before the Duke walked down the drive, lined by Year 7 pupils, stopping close to the gates to plant the anniversary oak tree. It is intended that the tree, which has been marked with a commemorative plaque, will come into full leaf for the first time at the School in the spring of 2023.

The tree will also form part of The Queen’s Green Canopy project inaugurated to mark Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee. Senior Vice-Captain Antony Yassa read a short extract from the wording of a new anthem composed for the anniversary year by internationally renowned composer, Howard Goodall, which is to receive its debut performance in Westminster Abbey in March: “Let us fill this place with hope. Face fate and fortune in our stride. That like an oak, we draw our strength from ancient roots spread deep and wide. From ancient roots spread deep and wide.”

Pupil representatives from the School’s Eco Network and its six Houses placed soil at the base of the tree, with the Duke invited to complete the process.

Queen Elizabeth’s School has been recognised for its commitment to pupil-led research after three sixth-formers impressed experts at a London conference with their presentation about robot navigation.

Headmaster Neil Enright has now received a certificate from the Institute for Research in Schools (IRIS) following the trio’s triumph earlier this year. They were one of only eight groups selected to present their research at the IRIS conference and were then singled out by one of the leading scientists there as her “highlight of the conference”.

In a letter accompanying the certificate, IRIS deputy director Marcus Bernard wrote: “I wanted to personally write to you and highlight the fantastic work of your colleague, Jonathan Brooke [Head of Physics], who went above and beyond to enable students at your school to carry out student-led research…

“It was a real pleasure to meet your students…They spoke eloquently and confidently about their research and were extremely well behaved, I was very impressed. They are an absolute credit to you and your team.”

Mr Enright today congratulated the three Year 13 pupils, Bhunit Santhiramoulesan, Heemy Kalam and Jashwanth Parimi on their success. “They chose the most challenging of the four options available to them – the ‘original research’ option – and then worked hard over a seven-month period, before delivering a confident, well-executed talk at short notice at the conference.”

IRIS develops opportunities for secondary-age pupils to participate in authentic research in schools and organises conferences at which pupils can share their research with their peers from other schools and the wider academic community. Around 50 other projects were displayed at the conference in which the QE boys took part. Representatives of just eight of those projects were invited to make presentations.

The QE presentation summarised the trio’s research project on automating the navigation of robots with limited sensing capabilities. They were given just two days’ notice that they would have to give their presentation.

The project had involved designing and creating a framework that generated minimal-error paths for a robot to take, given some set of points for it to pass through. They used deep reinforcement learning (a sub-field of machine learning) to achieve this, training the robot on generated paths and using a formula they had derived to quantify how good this path was.

Mr Brooke, who accompanied them to the conference, said: “Every step of the process was driven by the initiative of the boys, and it was fitting that one of the guests on the Scientist Panel that concluded the event, Dr Harshnira Patani, Senior Scientist Pharmacology at MSD (one of the world’s leading pharmaceutical companies), singled out the boys’ presentation as her highlight of the conference, making particular note of their use of machine learning.”

Through working on the project, Jashwanth said, the three had developed their “research and self-study skills, pushing ourselves to comprehend mathematics beyond the traditional syllabus, ranging from understanding neural networks to multivariable calculus”. He added that hearing from people with PhDs at the conference had made him consider research “as a possible future pathway”.

Heemy said: “Taking on a project with a lot of complex research independent of teacher assistance was the main challenge we faced, alongside coordinating the time spent reading literature with other schoolwork and activities.”

Bhunit added: “One of the highlights was being given the opportunity to present in front of hundreds of students and teachers , as well as being mentioned by Dr Patani as one of the projects that she found impressive.”