A Grade 11 student at St. Joseph’s Catholic High School in Windsor has placed second in a national AI video competition hosted by Best Buy Canada.
More than 40 schools took part over four weeks, with students using artificial intelligence tools to create original videos.
The project encouraged responsible use of AI, combining creativity, collaboration, and storytelling.
Quinton Palomino-Terranova says the story he created leans into a sci-fi theme.
“There was this AI overlord and that it was this person was supposed to control the entire world and go into the multiverse and everything,” he said.
“It was like a little bit inspired by Doctor Strange and the multiverse of madness. There was this person named Valker which was like the hero of the video.”
He says rules dictated what tools he used.
“We had to make an AI video with using copilot, which is an AI from Microsoft, and to brainstorm using I believe it was designer or something, to make a script, and then we had to compile all our clips that we took to make it into a full two minute video,” Quinton Palomino-Terranova said.
Palomino-Terranova says the project took persistence to get right, but it paid off when his classmates chose his video to represent the school at the national competition.
“It was really hard at first because sometimes AI can mess up with some stuff, but in general, like as I took time and time to perfectly make it, it was an interesting experience, but it was perfect,” he said.
The school received a $5,000 grant and five laptops, which will be used to support its arts and culture program.
Principal Laura Beltran says the new equipment will go straight back into student programming.
“We’re going to take those five laptops and we’re going to put them back into the specialist high skills major arts and culture program so that kids can continue using their video editing capabilities and what they learned in this particular contest,” Beltran said.
“They’ll just continue to add on to that in years to come.”