The development of Artificial Intelligence is one of the most powerful new tools that is shaping our modern world. But how does it work, and how can we make sure it’s used safely, respectably, honestly and effectively?
At STEM Camp, we believe in the importance of encouraging curiosity, asking questions and investigating how the world works. It’s all part of our foundational roots in inquiry-based learning.
Through thoughtfully designed and supervised activities, like the ones below, campers will explore these key areas so they can learn about how AI works, its limitations, and its exciting applications too.
The LEGO Adventurer Base has received some suspicious reports from its AI assistant. Some of the facts seem… off. Others sound amazing — but are they real? In this mission, campers become AI detectives, using ChatGPT to investigate facts, spot fiction, and reflect on when it’s okay (or not okay) to trust an AI-generated answer.
The LEGO Adventurer team needs help designing a new base camp — but their AI assistant needs very clear instructions. In this activity, campers learn how the questions they ask (called prompts) can completely change the answers they get from ChatGPT. They’ll explore how specificity, clarity, and tone shape AI responses, and how asking better questions unlocks better answers.
At the LEGO Adventurer Academy, campers must “train” a new AI drone assistant — but it can only learn from the examples it’s shown! In this roleplay-based challenge, campers discover how AI tools like ChatGPT are trained on large sets of data — and how the quality and variety of that data affects the outcome. They’ll simulate the training process themselves, then use ChatGPT to see how it’s answers reflect the patterns it has learned.
Following are a few of the coding and robotics activities, in addition to the many hands-on activities, that campers will enjoy depending on the themed week they join us for. We also ensure that all activities are age-appropriate for campers – in some cases creating totally different activities for different ages, as well as offering extra challenges for campers who are more proficient in a particular area, to ensure that all campers have an opportunity to feel engaged and successful, no matter their age or prior knowledge.
Herding animals, building castles, mining and avoiding lava…sure, online you can do it, but campers are going to code an Edison robot to do all these in real life!
Machine learning at STEM Camp? You betcha! Campers will create a custom AI model to recognize and categorize characters in a Minecraft mob.
Gear up, gather your materials, teleport to The End…and then, we’ll see how AI can help campers defeat the dreaded Ender Dragon!
Campers build a maze out of LEGO bricks and program the Edison robot to navigate through it using barcodes or block-based coding platforms like EdScratch.
Let’s join the LEGO Spy Team! Using Micro:bit’s radio feature, campers will send secret messages wirelessly between devices, just like walkie-talkies do!
Campers will build protective LEGO structures around their Edison robots and program them to move and compete in a safe “battle bot” style challenge.
