The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT) has invited high school students throughout the state to participate in this year’s PennDOT Innovations Challenge , which encourages students to use their problem-solving, creative, and strategic-thinking abilities to solve real-world transportation challenges in a competition among their peers.

The Innovations Challenge is open to all students in grades 9-12, regardless of their school’s learning model, a press release said.

The submission deadline is Jan. 30, 2026.

For this year’s challenge, students are asked to develop a concept for the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in work zones to dramatically improve safety for work crews and road users. The concept must outline how PennDOT can use smarter systems to prevent acciden

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