DARPA Prize Competitions

DARPA Prize Competitions are open innovation challenges run by the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to spur breakthrough technologies in areas like robotics, autonomous systems, cybersecurity, AI, biotech, and space. Rather than a single recurring contest, DARPA periodically launches different prize challenges, each with its own technical focus, rules, and prize pool—often in the hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars. Most DARPA prize challenges are open to a broad range of participants, including companies, academic groups, and independent teams. While there is no dedicated *high school–only* division, highly capable high school students sometimes participate as part of larger teams (for example, with a school, university lab, nonprofit, or company) if they meet the specific eligibility and legal requirements of a given challenge. These competitions offer participants the chance to work on real-world national security and engineering problems, gain experience in advanced research and development, and potentially earn substantial prize funding. Interested students should monitor the official challenges website and carefully review eligibility criteria for each competition.