During the past few months, the Greater Princeton branch of AYLUS members have been volunteering as teacher assistants for a scratch + machine coding course: AI Go Machine Learning.
With the dual purpose of promoting coding in Children and members’ contribution to teach Children coding, overtime, more and more high school students take part in this program, and more and more students are interested in learning artificial intelligence (AI).
For example, below are daily reports from GPA member Steven Chi with dates and hours:
8/17/2020
Today, the students continued working on their pac-man game. The teacher went over the machine learning concept of the decision tree, how to collect user data and train the model. This will be used to have the computer play the game itself. We first went over how to set up the machine learning model, then added in code to collect the location of the pac man and ghost location, and finally inputted the data and trained the model. I worked with students who were a little behind and made sure their normal code worked and that they have their model set up correctly.
Hours: 2:00 – 4:15 pm
8/19/2020
Today, the students moved onto working on the computer playing code of the pac-man game. We used similar decision structures as the usual mode with the user playing, except replaced the user input with the computer’s decision. I worked with students who were struggling a bit and weren’t sure what blocks to replace and what to add.
Hours: 2:00 – 4:15 pm
8/24/2020
We started the last unit today. First, the teacher introduced voice recognition and speech recognition, both of which will be used in the project. The project is very similar to a previous project, face lock, so the students were given a template with the code that they should have coded before. They were also given pre-recorded clips of previous presidents that would be used to train the model. At the end of class, all the students finished created the basic structure of the code and got all the buttons working.
Hours: 2:00 – 4:15 pm
8/26/2020
Today, the students continued working on their face lock project. They started implementing the recording feature this time, which involved some special blocks. I helped students who were struggling and guided them to the right blocks and tried my best to not directly give them the answer.
Hours: 2:00 – 4:15 pm
8/31/2020
Today, the students finished working on their face lock project. They implemented the last element, speech recognition. This serves as a 2-factor authentication where the person must read a certain phrase rather than using a recording. The teacher went over the basic logic and let the students work it out by themselves. If they had any issues, I would pull them into a breakout room and walk through the programming logic with them.
Hours: 2:00 – 4:15 pm
9/2/2020
Today was the last day of class. The teacher put on a video that showed the applications of machine learning in solving real-world problems. During that, I brought each student into a separate breakout room and gave them some feedback on their class performance and answered questions they may have with course selection from now on.
Hours: 2:00 – 4:15 pm
9/15/2020
Today, I presented to the panel of judges about the judging process of the hackathon. We went over the judging rubric and potential issues that the judges may see during the judging process. Then, I gave a mock presentation and explained how I would evaluate the project if I were a judge.
Hours: 8:00 pm – 9:00 pm
9/17/2020
Today, I presented to our teachers about the upcoming hackathon. The presentation was similar to the one I gave to the judges, but discussed the tasks they would need to do instead of the judging process. We wrapped up with a Q&A session. Overall, the session was successful as we got lots of teachers to sign as volunteers.
Hours: 7:00 pm to 8:00 pm
9/19/2020 & 9/20/2020
During the hackathon, I helped answer questions about the competition, such as submission dates, as well as helping participants solve any technical difficulties they may have with their code. On 9/19, I taught a workshop in scratch that covered how to use loops efficiently in their project. On 9/20, I helped set up the judging process. We ran into a technical difficulty that required some troubleshooting, which slowed down the entire process a lot. Once we got it sorted out, I checked in with the judges and made sure they had no problems and helped moderate the final judging process.
Hours: times between 9:00 am and 8:00 pm on 9/19 and between 9:00 am and 7:00 pm on 9/20
9/26/2020
Today, I taught a demo class for a potential class in Chicago. We went over a scratch project where the player shot needles at a spinning circle and had to not get two needles to touch each other. We first went over the basic layout of the project and coded each part separately. At the end, we add customizations that the students could add if they wanted to.
11/15/2020
Today, I helped teach a java pilot class. We recently created the java curriculum and want to see how our students would receive it. Along with another, we taught the first unit of the curriculum which introduces java and text-based programming. We then discussed efficient coding in java and its importance. We ended with a kahoot to test their knowledge and had them fill out a survey letting us know their opinions of the course.
Hours: 4:15 pm to 5:15 pm
12/23/2020
Today, I completed an evaluation for a new teacher in training for the newly created java course. We went over the evaluation procedure: they present the concept of pseudo-code and walk through one example as if I were a student. Then, they introduce the project and then walk through the project solution code. Last, we went through a couple of scenarios of an issue occurring to see how they would handle it.
Hours: 3:00 pm to 4:00 pm
12/26/2020
Today, I completed another evaluation for a new teacher in training for the java course. We went over the evaluation procedure: they present the concept of pseudo-code and walk through one example as if I were a student. Then, they introduce the project and then walk through the project solution code. Last, we went through a couple of scenarios of an issue occurring to see how they would handle it.
Hours: 5:00 pm to 6:00 pm
12/28/2020
Today, I taught a demo class for our scratch + ML course. It was an atari-style game that integrated facial recognition that allowed the player to use their nose to control the paddle. We started with the non-machine learning parts and completed the normal game, then moved onto the special facial recognition blocks.
Hours: 10:00 am to 11:00 am
3/27/2021
Today was the first day of the hackathon. I taught a demo class early in the day at 11pm that lasted an hour. I also helped moderate the discord server by answering questions regarding the submission process, prize pool, and project requirements.
Hours: times between 9:00 am and 6:00 pm
3/28/2021
Today was the second day of the hackathon. I helped set up the project list and split that evenly judging list by assigning groups to the judging rooms and making sure that we finished within the time. Then, I took the highest scoring projects and moved them onto final judging. During final judging, I helped things flow smoothly from one presenter to another, making sure that there was enough time for all the presenters.
Hours: times between 9:00 am and 5:00 pm
4/27/2021
I put together a summary report for this AI GO Learning course service and shared it with other members.
