ORLANDO, Fla. — At the University of Central Florida Institute of Artificial Intelligence, a group of rising eighth graders recently took part in a week-long summer camp to learn about the uses of generative AI in robotics, the medical field and more.
Sitting in the first row, Orlando Gifted Academy student Paayal Sonde paid close attention to the lecture.
“I’m really into STEM and AI is really interesting,” Sonde said. “My passion is space. I love space exploration, and I feel like I would have such a big role in space exploration as well, along with, like, autopilots.”
Although at first glance it might look like a regular class setting at UCF, it’s actually a group of middle school students filling the seats of a classroom at the university.
“I’m really excited to be part of this AI summer camp,” said Dr. Laura Brattain, an associate professor at the UCF College of Medicine. “The goal of this summer camp is to introduce this new next generation of students to learn about AI, different concepts of AI and for me, I really want to introduce students about medical AI, which is going to be a key driver in for the future of healthcare.”
Organizers said the summer camp was being held to help students become responsible users and future creators of AI technologies.
“AI is really advancing very fast, and it’s already in many parts of our lives,” Brattain said. “Medical AI is going to be the next frontier in our healthcare. So, it’s very important that we educate our next generation early on, so that they have the fundamentals of AI so they can use AI properly.”
With a hands-on learning approach guided by faculty researchers, students learned about different areas of generative AI.
“How to use AI successfully in your career path so that your own human performance is enhanced, as opposed to AI somewhat controlling you or crushing you, right?” said Institute of Artificial Intelligence faculty member Niels Lobo. “So, the key thing now is for these younger generation to learn all the appropriate skills … but at the same time, to make sure that they know about the guardrails.”
UCF received about 200 applications for the week-long summer camp — which ran June 15-19 — and a group of 48 students were selected to take part in it.
Each day students started off with a group lecture where they got to understand how AI systems work at a conceptual level. They take notes and have a chance to ask the instructor questions.
Then, they are broken up into three groups based on the topics presented and their own personal interests, where they get to work on hands-on projects about different applications of AI. Sonde said she looked forward to everything she will learn by the end of the week.
“It’s really fun,” Sonde said. “I love it. Next year I’m definitely going to do it again.”