During spring recess, seniors Brandon Massett and Sean Firsching, along with advisor Mr. Darrah, participated in the annual Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) Challenge Competition hosted by the Griffiss Institute.
Each year, a new challenge problem is created by engineers, mathematicians, data specialists and computer scientists from the AFRL and Griffiss Institute located at the Griffiss Technology Park in Rome. The challenge problem offers participating students an opportunity to investigate and work on a sample of the real-world problems the employees of AFRL encounter each day. Teams of two students from area schools are given one week to research the challenge problem and learn the skills necessary to formulate a solution. At the end of the week, the students present their findings to a panel of judges from the AFRL and Griffiss Institute. Grand prizes are awarded to the top three teams.
For this year's challenge problem, Massett and Firsching were tasked with researching decision-making, reinforcement learning and war gaming and its applications in the real-world scenario of navigating an airman to safety in hostile territory. The teams of students were given a simulation of a hostile territory using a grid-based computer program. Students then had to guide the airman to safety indirectly by creating a probability field of cardinal direction movements and writing priority equations to avoid hazards in order to reach an end goal. After creating a satisfactory field map and set of equations, Massett and Firsching submitted their findings to the computer scientists who created the challenge for testing. They also developed a concise ten-minute presentation for a panel of experts explaining their process and the applications of their research.
At the end of the five days, Massett and Firsching outscored the other area teams and were awarded first place! For their extraordinary efforts, the seniors were each given a $3,000 college scholarship.
If a team of students is interested in participating in the challenge competition next year, please see Mr. Darrah in the Jr./Sr. High School for details.
Congratulations, Brandon and Sean!