AI First Web Applications

The AI-First Web Applications Track guides students through the process of designing a web application through development and deployment, primarily using AI tools like Claude Code. The process begins with formal user analysis. We will brainstorm ideas, talk to potential users, research the problem we’re trying to solve, develop alternatives, and test them with users before producing a specification that we will have Claude code implement into a website. After creating the website in our development environment, we will deploy it to a commercial web host such as Render, Fly.io, or Digital Ocean. ß

Project Ideas

Students are welcome to propose their own projects, but here are a few starter ideas to think about. Pick one to join, or use them as inspiration for a pitch of your own. Each has a longer write-up linked below.

• League Pods — a platform for parents to form small pods around a class or after-school program, recruit other families, host the activity at someone’s home or church, and book the vendor.
• Summer Camp Jam — help parents coordinate a summer of camps with their friends: scrape camp listings, line up schedules, find the overlap between friend groups, and share carpools.
• Sublet for Good / Civic Space — match nonprofits and schools with vacant commercial space that landlords aren’t filling, including optional furniture rental and a volunteer-keyholder model.
• Science at Home — a marketplace for short science events: birthday-party demos, robotics sessions, kitchen-chemistry visits. Families book providers; providers list their kits.
• The Quartermaster — an inventory and lending system for tabletop gamers: catalog your minis, terrain, and books; lend and trade with friends; never lose track of who has the dragon.
• Link Up — a group scheduler for squads and friend groups. Merges everyone’s calendars with AI-captured preferences (“I hate mornings, never weekends, practice Tues/Thurs nights”) and proposes the times most people can actually pull up.
• STEM Ecosystem — a revamp of sdstemecosystem.org built around a scraper that pulls kid-friendly STEM events from museums, aquariums, parks, and nonprofits — beach cleanups, tide-pool walks, astronomy nights, bug-collecting field days — into one searchable regional calendar.
• Parent Showcase — a private parent portal where instructors post class photos, videos, code snapshots, and short updates, with an after-class email recap to families.
• Micro:bit Project Coach — students chat with AI about a Micro:bit or robotics idea, then get a personalized lesson path with starter tasks, mini-projects, and milestone steps toward the final build.

Meetings

See the meeting calendar for all upcoming session dates, times, and how to enroll.