The core model of the program is to build a collaborative structure consisting of student teams, parent coaches, a lead coach, and Dr. Meng’s guidance. Based on students’ interests, abilities, and project directions, Dr. Meng will help form competition teams of one to four students. Parents of each team may participate in the guidance process as parent coaches, helping students move forward with project development, time management, competition materials, and presentation preparation. Each team also needs to designate a lead coach who will communicate directly with Dr. Meng, coordinate team progress, and provide timely updates on challenges encountered during the project.

Throughout the guidance process, Dr. Meng’s main responsibilities include two key areas. First, he provides systematic training for parents so they can become effective project coaches and better support student teams. Second, he personally reviews and comments on each important stage of the students’ projects, including topic selection, problem definition, team roles, technical direction, project design, implementation, demo preparation, video production, and final presentation.

Through this systematic, team-based, and practice-oriented competition guidance model, our goal is to help students complete high-quality projects efficiently and at scale, and to achieve a high success rate in winning awards in top-level technology competitions.

This structured mentorship significantly increases the probability of winning and helps teams progress from zero to one—ultimately building championship-level projects.

Over the years, students participating in this program have achieved outstanding competitive results, demonstrating exceptional strength and consistency. For example, in the Spring 2024 and 2025 MIT Global AI Hackathon competitions, participating students secured 50% of all awarded projects, accounting for 100% of awards won by U.S.-based competitors.

Offered: Spring and Fall

Featured Target Competitions Include:

• MIT RAISE Global AI Hackathon
• MIT Appathon (Application Challenge)
• Congressional App Challenge (U.S. Congressional App Competition)
• National STEM Festival (U.S. Department of Education)
• WAICY – World Artificial Intelligence Competition for Youth
• Presidential AI Challenge (New!)

(Complimentary for registered students and parents; others may participate by contributing instructional fees as a donation to ACP Foundation)