DrTechniko

Train Young Innovators Anywhere Anytime

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How To Train Your AI

Last week I was invited to teach a group of 9th graders on the topic of AI. There is a general concern in schools that kids avoid learning by using a GPT [OpenAI, Gemini, Copilot, etc.] to do their homework. But in my opinion, given that AI is now readily available more than ever, we should adjust how we engage the students and what assignments we give them. AI is a tool they should not shy away from. Or they will fall behind. But, they should also have the wisdom to know how to use it. Or they will not grow. So, instead of telling them what to do, I showed them the real deal so they can make their own conclusions. We built an AI together as I told them a story. I hope my account of this lesson helps school teachers come up with ideas for their own classrooms.

To engage the students, I picked "movies and tv shows" as my story theme. I considered several other candidates: from making soccer predictions to personalized shopping but I felt that movies are a great way to engage both boys and girls in middle school and early high school. Besides, I used to work at Netflix 🙂

The fictional story was simple: "I have a bunch of movies that I watched, some of them I liked and some I didn't. I want to build an AI to tell me which movies I will like next. And because I'm lazy, I will ask an AI to help me build my AI! And then I will tell you how that AI got me in trouble."

It's all about data

First, I introduced myself to the kids to give them some clues: where I grew up, where I lived, what I did for work, etc.

Then I asked them to guess my preferences.

They guessed all the movies correctly except "Mamma Mia!". They thought that since I grew up in Greece I would have liked it. (Sorry, kids. I like my beach and tzatziki without the love drama.)

Then I showed them how I organized all this into data I could feed into the Movie AI using a spreadsheet.

I explained to the students that in order for the AI to decide what types of movies I like we need to tell the AI more information about each movie. We create what we call "features" to organize the information. For example "Is the movie animated?" or "is it high budget"? One of the students asked me "how do you tell if it's a high budget movie?". Good question. It gave me the chance to explain that, as the designer of the AI, I got to choose how to define that. In my case, I decided to call it "high budget" if it cost more than $100M to make. I also need to "label" each movie with "like" (check the box) or "dislike" (uncheck the box). For the computer this means like = 1 and dislike = 0.

Making the AI

Then I exposed them to the real code I wrote together with the GPT AI!

Why did I decide to torture the poor students with complex python code? I just wanted them to see how real engineers work. I explained to them that they didn't need to understand the code. I would just explain the high level idea and then run it together.

But by showing them the code, I also had a hidden agenda...

The GPT AI that I used to generate the initial code for the project made a critical error. It literally generated code that reversed my labels: 1's for the movies I don't like and 0's for the ones I liked. So I removed that "dangerous" piece of code.

It also generated code that trained the model only once, without performing proper Cross Validation, which is not a best practice in general. I let that slide however. It wasn't a big deal for the demonstration.

But it gave me the opportunity to explain to the students that if I didn't know how the code worked and I trusted the AI 100% then I would be in a lot of trouble. Maybe not for movies, but what if I trained an AI used in an autonomous car and then the car crashed??

After this, we trained the model and I showed them how training an AI is basically trying to position a line in such a way that it splits my "likes" from "dislikes" the best way possible by reducing the error of its guesses. That's why I had to train it for 1000 epochs to get there.

I showed them this graph:

At the end, I asked them to guess what my AI was. Was it a smart robot? A sentient being? A digital brain? The Matrix? The students had no clue. So I told them it was nothing this fancy. It was just a bunch of numbers that can help me draw a line to divide my data into two groups. We call them weights and biases.

Something like that:

Having fun with the AI

After we trained the AI together we saw how well it predicted these new movies:

Pretty good!

So then I asked the students to hack my AI. How would we do that? By hacking my data of course!

So here is what they did:

After "uncheck Ready Player One" and "check Barbie", etc. they figured to just simply reverse my labels (as shown at the bottom of my list).

Smart hackers!

And after we retrained the AI we got this:

Naruto was the only one who (barely) survived. He is a persistent little ninja after all!

Next Steps

After the class, I worked with the school teacher on follow-up assignment ideas. Here are some:

  • Create a new data set that has a similar format to the Movies one where you have to make one of two choices. For example, sports. For soccer you can train an AI for a goalie: "Should I dive LEFT or RIGHT?" based on data from opponent shots where the features are "isRightFooted", "runsFast", "wideAngleLeft", etc?
    • The kids then can discuss their data sets with the teacher. They can talk about how to reduce bias in their data or how they could collect and label them.
  • Try to play with the code and relabel and retrain the model to see where the AI gets confused and see if you can add extra movie features in the Feature list (or more movies).

Reference Materials

If you need to recreate this experience in your class or you want to have a conversation with your child here are the materials I used:

I hope we learned something useful today,

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Teaching the “How To Build A Simple Computer Out Of Anything” activity

Here are some guidelines for making the most out of the How To Build A Simple Computer Out Of Anything activity.

The idea of this activity is to teach kids that computers do not need to be these complex unfathomable machines. Computing and computational thinking happens everywhere. When you engage with the kids in this activity make sure you remind them of that.

Motivate them

Randomness and probability are such fundamental mathematical concepts that your kids will be exposed to them no matter what they study in life. The applications of random number generation in computing are endless. It is the basis of computer security, fault-tolerance, distributed systems, and more. Not to mention exotic areas like quantum computing, DNA sequencing and self-driving cars.

Give them examples of applications to keep them motivated. Especially stuff they interact with on a regular basis. One thing I tried with my son (who was five at the time) was to get him to generate 4 digits so he can set the passcode on his mom’s iPad and have her try to break the code. The fact that he had a secret in his head that was so powerful made him ecstatic! (Of course, I gave his mom the code and told her to pretend she didn’t know.)

Explaining randomness

Randomness is better explained in the context of a real application. You want to get the kids thinking along the lines of something like: “Imagine you are making a secret number for a combination lock or your iPad so a thief can’t open it. If the thief watched your computer doing work but didn’t see the numbers that came out, would he be able to guess the numbers if he repeated what you did?”

After they do the activity for a while and if you feel the kids are advanced enough, you may follow with questions about the quality of the random numbers. Are they truly random (well-distributed)? Can a “thief” easily guess them if he ran the computer a few times and picked the most popular outputs?

No computing in their heads

One thing that will likely happen is the kids will come up with a design where the random number is created by their own decision. That’s “cheating” so to speak. For example, their design might be to flip a card from a set of cards laid out on the table. They select the card, flip it and write down the number on the card. This is not a good design because they chose (in their head) which card to flip. So, keep reminding them that they can’t “choose” by themselves. The computer has to “choose”. A good design will involve actions that create entropy like mixing a bunch of things, throwing stuff in the air, or pushing or smashing something.

Help but don’t interfere

I’ve seen kids do all kinds of designs. From throwing a bouncy ball around the house to elaborate arts-and-crafts projects like a fully colored wheel-of-fortune. As long as the kids don’t compute the random numbers in their heads, let them be creative. The more they enjoy building and using their computer the more engaged they’ll be. Don’t hesitate to give them ideas to make their computers more “extravagant”.

More designs to play with

After the kids have designed their own, a great follow up exercise is to give them the “computing” materials first and then ask them to design a random-number generating computer using only the provided materials.

Here are some ideas on how to build a computer using only:

  • A bouncy ball.
    • How: drop it in the air and count how many times it bounces.
  • A long string.
    • How: drop it in the air. When it lands, count the number of times it crosses with itself.
  • A measuring tape with any of the above.
    • Measure distance travelled, length, width etc.

Share!

Use your phone and post pictures of your kid’s designs to the DrTechniko Facebook Page. I will personally respond to your posts.

Also, don’t hesitate to send me a personal message via the Facebook page if you need help.

I hope we learned something useful today,

DrTechniko

 

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Teaching the “How to train your robot” class

After popular request, in this post I explain how to teach the “How to train your robot” class.

The class is split in two parts.

Part 1 – Guess The Robot

The first part is a game called “Guess the robot”. I show kids slides of different robots and they have to guess what the robot is or what it’s special ability is. At the end of the presentation I explain to them how robots work. In addition, I had a real robot that moved when kids clapped or screamed at it. I used it to show the robot parts and we had some fun making it move around.

You should be able to finish this part of the class in 15-20 minutes depending how many questions the kids ask.

Part 2 – Train Your Robot

The basic process was to get all the kids together to explain to them the game. I use my slides to do that. Then I hand out the dictionaries and pen and paper. I gather all the kids an parents and we first act through all the moves. Then I write a simple program on a piece of paper “move forward, turn left, move forward” and I ask kids to show me what it does. After that we start doing the obstacle course (which I have setup before starting the class).

After they get their “robots” to bring back the ball you tell the kids to invent their own “moves” and so they have their parents doing funny stuff 🙂

You should be able to finish this part in 30-40 minutes before the kids’ attention span degrades to zero…

Class Materials

The materials I put together to run the class:

  1. Presentation Slides (and Presenter’s Notes) [Ελληνικά, Deutsch – Christian Mennerich]
  2. A laptop or iPad to show the slides.
  3. The Robot Language Dictionary [Ελληνικά, Deutsch – Rita Freudenberg]
  4. One pen and paper per kid (for kids to write programs and hand them to their robot parents).
  5. A space where you can arrange obstacles (one or two obstacles to make kids add turns to their programs is enough. I used a gym as you can see in the videos posted on Facebook, but I’ve also run the class in a room with chairs arranged as obstacles).
  6. A ball per kid-robot pair (the ultimate goal is for the robot to get the ball and bring it back to the beginning).
  7. Optional yet fun: A real robot. I bought and built my own basic robot ($50). It took about an hour to assemble.

Class Dynamics

  • Five year olds are better when left alone to create their special moves. They get very creative.
  • Seven year olds need more guidance because they have too many ideas. They’d rather be told what moves to invent.
  • I’d recommend no more than 6 kids in the class, so you can have the situation under control.
  • Try to regroup the kids after their robots get the ball. Explain to them that now they can invent new moves.
  • Parents beware, you may have a serious workout. Kids love to make you repeat stuff 100 times. I advise to wear comfortable clothes.

I would love to hear your findings and see photos from you running the class at home or school.

I hope we learned something useful today,
DrTechniko

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StoRy 4 – LetteRs C4n’t Count. NumbeRs C4n’t Spell.

The Letter R and the Number 4 bumped into each other in front of the same box in a crossword puzzle.

The Letter R wanted to get into the box.

But the Number 4 would only let the correct letter into the box.

“Arr! I’m the letter R and I’m the rowdiest letter of all. This box is super-duper perfect for me. I’m jumping right in!”

But the Number 4 was not willing to let things get out of order.

“I’m the Number 4 and I’m guarding this box, because this box is the fourth box. Only if you are the fourth letter in the word I will let you in.”

“Well… the word is ‘FOUR’ and I’m the Letter R, so spell ‘FOUR’ and see if I’m at the right box.”

“I’m… I’m… I’m… a Number. I can’t spell.”

“How sad… Now, can you move aside so I can get into the box?”

But the Number 4 did not move.

The Number 4 did not let things get out of order.

“If you spell ‘FOUR’ then you ‘ll see if you are the fourth letter.”

“Only then I will let you in.”

“I’m a Letter. I don’t do counting.”

“And I’m a Number. I can count but I can’t spell.”

“Arrr! If you knew how to spell ‘FOUR’, then we wouldn’t be sitting here forever!”
“FOUR”
“F…”
“O…”
“U…”
“Arr!”


“Well, I like sitting here. I like counting over and over. It’s quite soothing…”
“1”
“2”
“3”
“4”


“Arr! Arr! Arr!” yelled the Letter R in frustration.
“F..”
“O…”
“U…”
“Arrr!”

“1”
“2”
“3”
“4”
And suddenly…


The Number 4 had an idea.

“How about you spell ‘FOUR’ and I count at the same time?”

“I ‘ll stop counting when you say ‘R’.”

So the Letter R said, “OK. Let’s start.”

“F…”

              “…1”

“O…”

             “…2”

“U…”

             “…3”

“R…”

             “…4”


“Arrr! So I am the fourth letter in the word ‘FOUR’ after all!”

“I believe this is correct,” said the Number 4.

“Arrr! Arrr! The box is mine!” said the Letter R and jumped inside the box.

“This is the greatest box ever.”
“Too bad you’ll never have a box of your own, Number 4.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“How about you look OUTSIDE the box?”


“That’s good.”

“A bit more…”

“Very good”
“Just a tiny bit more…”

THE END

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Children’s Storytelling: Digital or Printed?

The last day of my children’s book writing class we did a show-and-tell of our favorite children’s books. Instead of bringing a book, I brought in an iPad and showed Dr. Seuss’s “The Cat In The Hat” app from Oceanhouse Media. The comments I got from my classmates (among them many parents and teachers) were mixed. Some liked the extra features of the app that can only be done in a digital medium. They liked for example that a kid could click on the fish on the screen and have the word “fish” pop up. Some disliked them. They found for example the voice of the actor/narrator unfit or distracting.

If one looks at the industry news for book publishing it is clear that digital publishing is making huge strides as e-readers improve. What should we expect digital storytelling to turn into in the future?

I believe with more experience, application developers will learn what works with kids and parents and what doesn’t. At the same time, we ‘ll also learn how to get the most out of digital storytelling, the same way we learned to get the most out of our books. Especially because I think the line between what is considered a digital book and a video game will be blurred.

I was fortunate enough to interview one of the entrepreneurs in digital storytelling, Andrew Gitt, the founder of storytimeforme.com about his vision on digital vs printed storytelling and what the advantages of each medium are for educating our children.

Andrew, tell us a bit about what your vision behind storytimeforme.com is and who your audience is.

You can check out our mission and target audience at http://storytimeforme.com/about-us.

What’s unique about your site is that even though you offer digital stories, you also do prints. What led you to the decision to do both?

We recently started the personalized activity book as we recognize teachers and parents are also looking for hands-on activities.  We started off just as an online library which we plan on expanding of course. We already have over 40 books complete which we’ll slowly be releasing.

How does your technology help children learn how to read?

A child is assisted by having the text highlighted as the story progresses. However, technology really serves our higher goal. Our motto is not to teach kids to read. Honestly, that’s not what we do. What we are trying to do is make reading fun and have the national average of 4 hours of TV be replaced by more
reading.

What would you like to see the future bring for digital storytelling?

I would like to have hundreds of books with many publishers and authors with a lot of variety and be a place where kids can ‘plop’ in a safe environment and read instead of watching TV.  That’s our goal at storytimeforme.com at least.  Also I would love to see stories offered into other languages. It’s one of our future goals as well.

***

I’m curious to hear what you guys think. Here is a poll to pick your brains.

I hope we learned something useful today,

Dr. Techniko