Starting in Chania, a team of four high school students created the smart device "Calmify AI", which helps students overcome study stress, and won first place, representing Greece in the European final of the Skills Upload Jr Challenge program.
"As high school students, we feel daily stress and pressure about classes, exams and grades. That's how we created the Calmify AI "so that it helps students overcome their anxiety," students Eva Golikova, Eleftheria Tzagaraki, Alexandra Papadogiorgaki and Julien Charalampaki told APE-MPA.
"We wanted to create a tool that would not only help with 'what to read', but also with 'how I will feel' while reading. CALMify AI was designed with this very philosophy in mind: to act as a supportive ally to the user, helping them to maintain their calm and concentration," they added.
The “CALMify AI” device can detect, with the help of Artificial Intelligence, signs of a student’s anxiety while reading, such as posture and facial expressions, and helps them manage it. When it detects signs of anxiety, it automatically produces relaxing music to help the student calm down and continue their reading focused. With a combination of an AI camera, a microcontroller, creative programming and 3D design, “CALMify AI” creates a supportive learning environment that enhances concentration and helps reduce school stress.
As Alkis Bakaros, the group's supervising teacher, told ΑΠΕ-ΜΕΑ, anxiety in ages 12-15 is "existent and, in many cases, increased" and its management is an issue that concerns teachers, as children are pressured not only for their performance in school, but also by social expectations, the need for acceptance from peers and the image projected on social media.
"Their stress is not 'exaggerated'; it is real and deserves attention. The demands of everyday life, classes, exams, but also the constant comparison with others, create a pressure that was not so intense in the past," said Mr. Bakaros.
As he pointed out, with the device created by the team, he wanted to show that "technology can and should be an ally in the digital well-being of young people", however, as he noted, "the solution does not lie there alone", as communication with parents, teachers and friends, physical activity, quality time without screens, proper time management and a supportive environment that does not pressure, but encourages, are very important factors.
"The most important thing is for children to understand that stress is normal, but it needs ways to be managed. And we, as adults, have a responsibility to show them these ways with understanding and not with pressure," he concluded.
The four 3rd grade high school students and their supervising teacher began their endeavor from Chania and Theodoropoulos Schools, participating in the 9th Generation Next Panhellenic Competition, where they won first place and represented Greece in the online European final of the Skills Upload Jr Challenge program. There, they competed with teams from Spain, the Netherlands, Albania, Romania and Turkey and won first place.
"The first European position for us means great joy and pride. It shows that our work was recognized and that although students without any specialization, we can create something important that stands out throughout Europe. It also gives us strength to continue and believe more in our ideas," they told APE-MPA.
In fact, they noted that this first place not only rewards innovation, but also the effort to provide an answer to a "real problem": the management of stress and intense emotions in the everyday lives of young people.
Although, as they stated, "there is a lot of work to do to move the device from the experimental/idea stage to the practical use stage," they estimated that it would be beneficial for every school to acquire the device, so that students would feel more confident and less anxious, and they expressed the hope that at some point this would become possible.
Furthermore, after European recognition, they assessed that the device's functions now have the potential to further evolve, make it more accessible, and enhance its impact on more people.
Although the press releases will range from very select to rare, I said I'd pass...because sometimes the editors hide.
