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AI YOUTH LABProject Academy

Curriculum

Eight weeks, week by week

A deliberate arc from safe foundations to a finished, presented project. Every week produces a concrete output — nothing is 'just theory'.

1

Week 1

AI Foundations & Safety

  • What AI actually is — from rules to neural networks, explained for young builders
  • First supervised hands-on sessions with ChatGPT and Claude
  • Hallucination and bias: why AI sounds confident even when it's wrong
  • Privacy fundamentals: what you never share with an AI
  • AI as tutor vs. AI as cheat — our academic integrity contract
  • 40 core English AI terms every builder uses daily
  • Set up the personal learning journal and project workspace

Project output

My AI Learning Map

2

Week 2

Prompt Thinking

  • The anatomy of a strong prompt: role, context, constraints, examples
  • Iteration discipline: why the third prompt beats the first
  • Core prompt patterns: brainstorm, critique, rewrite, step-by-step
  • Same question, different models — comparing and judging outputs
  • Building a reusable personal prompt library
  • Daily English drills: explaining what you asked and why
  • Cohort prompt battle, judged live by instructors

Project output

Personal AI Assistant Prompt Pack

3

Week 3

AI Storytelling & Research

  • Story structure — hook, conflict, resolution — with AI as co-writer, not ghostwriter
  • Research workflow: from question to sources to verified facts
  • Triangulating AI claims against real, citable sources
  • Citation basics and giving credit properly
  • Interviewing skills: gathering first-hand material for your project
  • Outlining and drafting in English with AI feedback loops
  • Peer review workshop: giving and receiving useful critique

Project output

AI-supported story or mini research report

4

Week 4

AI Image, Design & Multimodal Creation

  • How image models work — and why they fail in funny ways
  • Writing visual prompts: subject, style, composition, lighting
  • Iterating to consistency: keeping characters and style stable across images
  • Design fundamentals: layout, contrast, and hierarchy for young designers
  • Image ethics: copyright, attribution, and what's off-limits
  • Building the final project's visual identity: logo, palette, imagery
  • Multimodal experiments: combining text, image, and audio

Project output

Visual identity for the final project

5

Week 5

AI Presentation & Communication

  • The demo narrative: problem → build → demo → what's next
  • Slide design that supports the speaker instead of replacing them
  • English delivery: pacing, emphasis, and confidence on camera
  • Handling live Q&A without freezing
  • Using AI as a private speech coach
  • Daily recorded rehearsals with instructor feedback
  • Peer pitch workshop: present, get grilled, improve

Project output

Project pitch deck draft

6

Week 6

AI Coding / No-Code Prototyping

  • How code works: learning to read before writing
  • AI-assisted coding: describe, generate, test, debug
  • No-code stacks: knowing when to code and when not to
  • Building the first working version of your prototype
  • Debugging as detective work — hypotheses, not guesses
  • Documenting and versioning your build like a professional
  • Ship a v0 and demo it to the cohort

Project output

Working mini prototype

7

Week 7

Final Project Build

  • Scope-cutting: deciding what stays and what goes
  • Daily build sprints with instructor checkpoints
  • Integrating writing, visuals, and prototype into one narrative
  • User testing with cohort peers — and acting on what you hear
  • Iterating on structured mentor feedback
  • Full demo dry-run under real conditions
  • Final polish and personal project page assembly

Project output

Final project, ready to present

8

Week 8

Demo Day with Guest Mentors

  • Final rehearsals with one-on-one English coaching
  • Tech check, staging, and presence training
  • Present live in English to the guest mentor panel
  • Structured written feedback from every reviewer
  • Reflection: what I built, what I learned, what's next
  • Certificate award and personal project page publication
  • Pathways after the cohort — including the Silicon Valley immersion

Project output

Demo Day presentation · Certificate · Personal project page

Parents receive progress updates at weeks 2, 4, and 6, and a full recap after Demo Day. Track-specific depth varies: Junior Creator students emphasize creative outputs, while AI Builder students go deeper on coding, prototyping, and research.

Week 8 · The Finale

How Demo Day actually runs

Parents attend live. Every student presents. Every student gets written feedback. Here is the exact sequence.

  1. Day before

    Full dress rehearsal

    Tech check, timing run, and final coaching with the lead instructor.

  2. Opening

    Cohort recap

    The lead instructor presents the 8-week journey — what this group learned and built.

  3. Presentations

    5 minutes per student, in English

    Each student demos their project live, followed by 3 minutes of Q&A from the mentor panel.

  4. Panel

    Mentor feedback

    Guest mentors give structured feedback; every student receives it in writing afterwards.

  5. Ceremony

    Certificates awarded

    Certificates presented live, with parents watching.

  6. Within 48h

    Recording + project page

    Families receive the full recording, written feedback, and the published personal project page.

$0 tuition

for cohort graduates

Weeks 9–12 · Optional

Then come to Silicon Valley — and learn where it's being built

After Demo Day, graduates can join an optional four-week on-site immersion in the San Francisco Bay Area. Tuition is $0 for AI Youth Lab graduates — families cover travel and accommodation only.

  • On-site project studio in the Bay Area — daily sessions continue in person
  • Guided visits to iconic tech campuses and landmarks (visitor-accessible areas)
  • University tours: Stanford and UC Berkeley
  • In-person workshops and fireside chats with our mentors
  • A final live showcase, presented in the Valley
  • Small chaperoned groups — parents are welcome to travel along

Families arrange and cover flights, visas, lodging, and insurance. We issue invitation letters immediately upon enrollment to support visa applications, and our visa coordinator guides you through the process. Seats are limited per cohort and confirmed during admissions.

Fall 2026 cohort — applications open

See the curriculum in action.

Apply for the next cohort, or join a free Parent Info Session to walk through the full program with our team.

Apply for the Next CohortTalk to an Advisor