The Amazing EntoRace at the 2026 Eastern Branch Meeting, March 14-17, in Saratoga Springs, New York, was designed as a “Digital Entomology Edition,” engaging participants in an educational and team-based competition with modern digital tools that are now widely used in research and applied entomology. (Logo designed using ChatGPT by Sruthi Valicharla, Ph.D.)

By Kushal Naharki, Sheena O’Donnell, and Sanjok Timalsina

Editor’s Note: This post is part of a series contributed by the ESA Student Affairs Committee. See other posts by and for entomology students here at Entomology Today.

The Amazing EntoRace was started by Tom Kuhar, Ph.D., and his team during EntoQuest, the ESA Eastern Branch summer meeting, in 2023. It has since been a popular and memorable part of the Eastern Branch summer meetings and annual meetings since. Participants race against hurdles, better understand entomology, and build connections along the way.

Building on the popularity of many fun-filled physical games of the race in the past, this year’s Amazing EntoRace, which took place at the 2026 Eastern Branch Meeting, March 14-17, in Saratoga Springs, New York, was designed as an educational and team-based competition with modern digital tools. While reflecting a broader shift within the discipline toward digital methods, the idea of maintaining the collaborative and exploratory spirit of entomology through games is still at the core. The Digital Entomology Edition at this year’s meeting incorporated technologies that are now widely used in research and applied entomology. The 2026 event was organized by the team of Yong-Lak Park, Ph.D., Ashley Kennedy, Ph.D., Sruthi Valicharla, Ph.D., Kushal Naharki, Wil Winter, and Sheena O’Donnell.

The race combines traditional knowledge of insects and technological tools to bring a fun-filled and memorable learning experience, while building teamwork among participants. This year’s Amazing EntoRace race included five different stations. Rather than relying solely on physical specimens, participants interacted with digital platforms and datasets in every part of the race. Each event was timed, and the team that successfully completed all the games in the shortest time won. A total of eight teams participated in the game, with the winners recognized at the award luncheon. Every team showed enthusiasm, competence, and teamwork.

Pinning Game

At the Pinning Game station, participants (right) used a finger to tap a digital screen to indicate how they would pin a hymenopteran specimen, shown in detail at left. (Photos by Kushal Naharki and Sruthi Valicharla, Ph.D.)

At this station, participants were tested on their insect pinning knowledge, but with a creative twist! Instead of using traditional pins, the participants used their fingertips as the “pin,” and the insect specimens appeared on a digital screen. This creative adaptation emphasized precision, observation, and adaptability, encouraging participants to think beyond conventional insect-handling techniques.

By integrating a fun and interactive approach while preserving real specimens, this game serves as an engaging and effective tool for learning proper pinning techniques.

What’s Wrong With This Picture?

Participants (left) work to find the mistakes in an AI-generated picture (right), in which the primary error is that the bees appear to be bumble bees, while the nest entrance reveals honeycomb, which is only made by honey bees. Participants could also identify also finer points of error related to the bees’ anatomy and the nest entrance size and comb placement. (Photos by Kushal Naharki and Sheena O’Donnell)

At this station, participants were challenged to apply their entomological knowledge to spot errors in AI-generated images of insects. These pictures often contained subtle inaccuracies such as extra legs, unnatural wing patterns, or incorrect body coloration, which required careful observation and a solid understanding of insect anatomy and taxonomy to detect.

This activity tested both attention to detail and critical thinking while also highlighting the current limitations of AI in accurately replicating the intricate details of the natural world.

Insect Taboo

Wil Winter (in gray shirt) hosts participants using ChatGPT on a laptop to play an Insect Taboo game. (Photo by Kushal Naharki)

This game highlighted the importance of precise and strategic prompt design when working with AI systems. Creativity was central in this exercise, where participants were challenged to communicate insect-related concepts without relying on the most obvious or common descriptors. For instance, they needed to write prompts for ChatGPT to generate the word “ocelli” as an answer without mentioning “eyes,” “simple,” “head,” “vision,” or “light” in their commands. This constraint encouraged innovative thinking and precise language use, transforming simple descriptions into engaging word puzzles.

Success in this task depended on how effectively participants structured their prompts while carefully choosing alternative cues, context, or concepts to guide the AI toward the correct answer.

Six-Legged Ladybird Beetle Race

At the six-legged ladybeetle race station (left) ESA executive director Chris Stelzig (right, front), Melissa Willrich Siebert, Ph.D., BCE (right, rear), and Karly Regan (far right) competed along with students and early-career professionals. (Photos by Kushal Naharki and Ashley Kennedy, Ph.D.)

In this engaging and playful activity, participants took on the role of hungry lady beetles on the hunt for their prey. Dressed in cardboard lady beetle costumes, they used a grabber tool to pick up papers scattered on the floor, each potentially containing a picture of prey underneath. Teams had to match insect-related vocabulary terms on a tablet to their correct definitions to earn an opportunity to search one paper card at a time.

The activity continued through multiple rounds until participants successfully found the paper marked with a prey image underneath. This game combined elements of teamwork, entomological knowledge, and physical interaction while allowing participants to experience predator-prey interactions in a hands-on, gamified manner.

The Zigzag Sawfly Oviposition

The zigzag sawfly oviposition station featured a tablet showing the puzzle, an “ovipositor” made from a funnel and strap, and balloons. (Photo by Kushal Naharki)

Participants guided a sawfly through the oviposition process in this station. The exercise began with a butterfly-themed puzzle displayed on a tablet, which participants needed to solve to proceed. Upon completing the puzzle, they received a specific color cue that served as their guide to identify suitable host sites, represented by colored balloons, for egg deposition. Participants were then equipped with a zigzag sawfly ovipositor and tasked to deposit eggs in the optimal locations by pointing to the correct balloon.

The activity concluded with participants bursting the target balloon with the ovipositor, representing successful oviposition at the selected location. This station required spatial reasoning, precision, and quick decision making while highlighting the importance of oviposition behavior in insect life cycles and offering an interactive way to understand insect ecological relationships.

The overall combination of competence in entomology, agility, and adaptability with the digital components decided the winners in the race (first: Team Deering; second: Team Patch), and the same applies to the field of entomology. As entomology continues to evolve rapidly, the Amazing EntoRace is more than a game—it’s an example of how integrating technology and science can bring out lots of learning with loads of fun.

Kushal Naharki is a Ph.D. candidate at West Virginia University studying aerial detection of invasive species and using natural enemy insects for their management with drones. He is the 2026 chair of the ESA Student Affairs Committee. Email: [email protected] or [email protected]. Sheena O’Donnell is a recent master’s graduate from the University of Maryland’s Applied Entomology program and is studying integrated pest management (IPM) for commercial horticulture, focusing on phenology and predator interactions of crapemyrtle bark scale. Email: [email protected]. Sanjok Timalsina is a Ph.D. student at West Virginia University studying use of drones and artificial intelligence for the management of invasive species via biocontrol. Email: [email protected].