Our experience with iChallengeU 2026 has been great. Our team, while small, has been very focused and eager to provide a strong solution to the League of Women Voters.

Team Feedback: Our driving question, while open-ended, is difficult to work with. A more specific definition of target audience, location, and purpose would have made the question easier to work with.

Ambassador Feedback: The League has been doing a much better job of reaching out to students (via this program, presence in local high schools, and other connections) yet they aren't seeing an increase in League membership as a result. Perhaps a future driving question could be "How do we increase the number of League members under the age of 30?"

What surprised you? The diversity of our team. The team was comprised of many different grade levels, different schools, and different personalities.

What would you do differently?

We are excited to work with more young people and really make a difference! -Paula

Getting people to respond to our survey is really hard! -Jada

I wonder where we can find young people to talk to? -Allina

We have four people on our team like the four teletubbies. Who wants to be our sun baby? -Allina

Paula is so cool! -Elaine

Storyboards

What surprised you? Students' use of AI helped to generate more tech-based ideas than they had initially come up with.

What would you do differently? While we checked in a few times, it is always hard to tell if all team members have full buy-in. Finding ways to hear team hesitations would be helpful to ensure buy in.

I'm so glad we don't have to drive a big van! - Mrs. Spruit

We used chart paper and sticky notes to create our lists and maps. While interviewing downtown Holland, the students created a QR code and Google Forms survey and shared it with downtown patrons to collect interview data.

We traveled to Spring Lake and Grand Haven to see Ottawa County Parks in action. We used the Hopes/Fears/Norms poster, sticky notes, and poster paper throughout our observation stage.

What surprised you? The team struggled to get responses to our survey, but they continually put themselves out there and kept trying.

What would you do differently? Having more time would have made the investigation stage more thorough.

What surprised you? How well our team responded to the pressure of a time crunch. When we felt the clock ticking, we were better focused and productive.

What would you do differently next time? Find multiple teams to do Critical Friends with and begin that earlier in the process.

Dr. Rachel Coussens--I have been working at Zeeland East High School for 11 years. I currently teach Algebra 1, Geometry, and Guided Studies.

After meeting with our business partner at the end of day 2 and 3, we summarized and identified more wonderings for our next meeting.

We used Canva, Instagram, and TikTok to prep and record posts and videos. Google Slides were created for the final presentation. We also used paper and notecards to script and prepare for the final presentation.

Members of the League came to our final presentation to hear more about the work we have done over the two weeks.

What surprised you? By this stage, our team took the reins and were able to narrow down without much guidance from teachers.

What would you do differently next time? The biggest difficulty for the team was narrowing down ideas to one solution. Next time, it might be wise to have the business partner more involved to see what ideas are feasible for their company.

What surprised you? The feedback we received was overwhelmingly positive and helpful.

What would you do differently next time? Check that our technology was working properly. We had a small hiccup with the TikTok videos playing.

Each day we hosted a specific LWV member with varied expertise in order to gain insight and awareness about their area of the League.

Students have also tied in statistics and data analysis after working with a survey downtown Holland.

At the end of Day 1, our students created a diagram together to show their big ideas and questions related to the driving question.

We looked at what these groups would see/hear/think/say/do if our project was successful.

We used the top 2 stakeholders to create empathy maps.