As artificial intelligence becomes increasingly prevalent, University of Georgia students are creating innovative uses for the technology. For the second year, students submitted projects to the Generative AI Competition, sponsored by the Office of Instruction and Franklin College of Arts and Sciences’ department of philosophy to recognize student AI projects that enrich the UGA community or experience.
“Using these tools in the right way to think more deeply about a topic or get a different perspective that our own lived experience does not afford, can be really helpful,” said Lindsey Harding, co-coordinator of the GenAI Competition and director of Franklin College’s Writing Intensive Program.
The competition saw 24 projects submitted this year, a substantial increase from the eight projects in the first year. UGA faculty and staff judges selected three winners, awarding $600, $400 and $200 to first, second and third place as well as $100 to an honorable mention. Students used generative AI tools such as ChatGPT, DALL-E and Amper to bring their creations to life. All submissions can be viewed in this year’s online showcase.
“It was exciting to see participants leverage AI to create a stronger sense of community, from planning campus programs to envisioning and even building apps that connect students,” said Chandler Christoffel, director of UGA’s Academic Engagement Department and GenAI Competition judge. “This year, we saw engagement with a broader range of AI applications, tools and techniques. I enjoyed submissions that showed and articulated the thinking and design process, including setbacks, which can often be just as interesting and enlightening as the end results.”
Submissions ranged from campus safety tools for students that provided features such as emergency alerts and contact integrations to the Zero-Waste Dining Initiative designed to reduce food waste, promote sustainability and create a more eco-conscious campus culture.
Judges prioritized creativity, community impact, innovative use of AI tools and detailed documentation of the development process when selecting the winners.
Using images for reading comprehension
First place went to Sophie Brewer, a third-year Lamar Dodd School of Art graphic design major, who created InkTrap using Microsoft Copilot, Adobe Firefly, ChatGPT and OpenArt. InkTrap is designed as a reading accessibility website that leverages generative AI to create images and text for students who have trouble comprehending text and focusing for long period of time.
The project was inspired by a class Brewer took on AI in arts that sparked her interest in how generative AI can be used for accessible design and creating solutions for those who are often overlooked.
“When used appropriately and ethically, AI can be an extremely valuable learning tool for anyone of any age and lead to new projects that were previously unfathomable,” Brewer said. “AI doesn’t just have to be something that can generate silly videos or images, it can be used as a tool to help people in need; I hope InkTrap can showcase that.”
An interactive map of Athens’ music history
Second place was awarded to Suhan Kacholia, a fourth-year Double Dawg student earning her bachelor’s in cognitive science and master’s in artificial intelligence from the Institute for Artificial Intelligence. Kacholia created an interactive map of the musical history of Athens using archival interviews, large language models and geospatial visualization. Data was sourced from the Athens Music Project Oral History Collection, which is maintained by the Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies.
Kacholia used Google’s Gemini 2.0 to process audio transcripts from interviews and extract location data by identifying the venues and landmarks mentioned in the interviews. After, Python was utilized to perform geocoding that converted the venue names into latitude and longitude coordinates that could be plotted on a map. This project was designed to demonstrate how AI can be used to transform substantial amounts of unstructured data and help students to connect with the musical legacy of Athens.
“Working on this project helped provide a new layer through which I can see this city we call home — I can literally walk in the footsteps of all these musicians and creatives I find so inspiring,” Kacholia said.
Turning class notes into songs and ideas into apps
Bianca Wilson, a third-year student in the Hugh Hodgson School of Music, took the third place award with Music Notes, a program created using Google Gemini and YuE, a MusicGen software. Music Notes allows students to upload information such as notes or flashcards from a class and transform them into short, catchy songs that can be downloaded as MP3 files. The inspiration for MusicNotes came from research in music psychology that shows the brain processes musical information differently from standard linguistic information.
Honorable mention was awarded to Ph.D. student Rex VanHorn, who is studying artificial intelligence in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences. His project, The Idea Appetizer, uses large language models to generate code that can turn an idea into a working application .
Faculty and staff in the Office of Instruction, department of philosophy and Writing Intensive Program hope to continue to spark students’ interest in AI and build more awareness of the competition. Competition updates and submission instructions for the 2026 competition will be posted online.
“This competition provides evidence that our students are eager to find new and valuable ways of using AI here at the university,” said Aaron Meskin, philosophy department head and co-coordinator of the GenAI Competition.
