Back when (about ~15 years ago now?), OpenTTD added a custom AI player API. I found out about that right about when we had an "AI" class, and since it was pretty freeform I suggested that the teams build competing bots for OpenTTD. It was great, I don't think any of the players were particularly successful and some of them "cheated" by not deferring their heavy processes, locking up the server when it started up to pre-calculate routes and strategies. But it was an interesting endeavour in LUA, optimizing, path calculations, that kinda thing.
I believe at the time they had like a competition or open entry program to select a few community-created bots to include into the base game. I don't believe I ever mentioned our school thing in their community forums, I probably should have.
TL;DR OpenTTD for education purposes!