More than a dozen middle school students participated in พรพรศศโs inaugural week-long day camp that explored the fundamentals of artificial intelligence.
พรพรศศ hosted its inaugural AI Play summer camp this month for rising middle school students with interest in the world of artificial intelligence.
Thirteen students participated in AI Play, held June 15-19 in Lindner Hall on Elonโs campus, where they learned about artificial intelligence while improving their AI literacy.
“The camp provides a way for students to get interested in this technology in an unplugged way,โ said Alexis Goslen, an assistant professor or computer science. โWe used a lot of โunpluggedโ activities that do not involve computers like โGuess Whose Face,โ a game where the students act as the facial recognition system and we introduce the concepts by connecting it to unlocking your phone.โ
พรพรศศ participated in several hands-on learning activities that introduced concepts about pathfinding, perception and machine learning, speech recognition and more.
โWe did an activity about facial recognition and that was really cool to see how AI uses facial recognition in our everyday devices and how a few viewpoints can map out entire facial features,โ said Trisha Anna, a seventh grader at Durham Academy in Durham, North Carolina.
The camp focused every day on a โbig ideaโ of an artificial intelligence concept. พรพรศศ learned about concepts and worked in groups to apply the concept before ending with a group discussion on ethics.
โThe ethics discussions were my favorite part of camp,โ Goslen said. โThe students seemed excited to talk about different scenarios using AI and they had really interesting perspectives. The discussions showed how the camp was challenging their thinking and I loved seeing studentsโ engagement in that.โ
The activities throughout the week gave students the opportunity to problem solve, learn the basics of artificial intelligence, coding and ethics.
โI wanted to attend AI Play because I really wanted to learn AI and how to use it without doing anything bad and I also thought it would be a fun experience to try something new and meet new friends,โ said Caitlyn Stephens, a seventh grader at Blessed Sacrament School in Burlington, North Carolina.
Throughout the week, Goslen noticed the students’ learning and growing.
โWe held a workshop where students got to see the Elon robot dog and the campers were amazed by it,โ Goslen said. โThey had so many questions and their questions were often based on material we had covered in the camp. It was nice to hear their questions because it demonstrated the knowledge they gained from the camp.โ
As technology and artificial intelligence grow more prevalent in everyday life, it is important for education about these technologies to be introduced earlier, Goslen said.
Goslen said she hopes the camp sparked students’ interest in technology, computer science and engineering and remember the concepts when they interact with technology and choose how to use it.
The campers agreed.
โSome of the new skills I learned at the camp were the proper way to use AI and how it has such a big impact on our everyday lives,โ Anna said. โWith AI changing so rapidly it is important for all middle schoolers to have somewhat of a grasp on it.”
For more information about AI Play and information about future camps, contact Alexis Goslen, assistant professor of computer science, at agoslen2@elon.edu.