AIC Week (Aug 21–Aug 26) Activity Report

AIC held its “AIC Week,” a one-week event for elementary, junior high, and high school students from Keio affiliated schools to learn about programming and data science, at Yagami Campus from August 21 to August 26.
In addition to easy-to-understand lectures for beginner programmers, the event featured a variety of activities such as “AIC mikuji” (a lottery to win goods featuring AIC’s original characters), a campus tour of facilities and laboratories on Yagami Campus, and even a shaved ice tasting session.

An article about this activity will be published on the official Keio University website. Please refer to the following links:
Japanese：https://www.keio.ac.jp/ja/
English: https://www.keio.ac.jp/en/

Introduction to Machine Learning (Day 4)

On the fourth day of “AIC week,” the “Introduction to Machine Learning,” lecture, which is usually offered to university students, was specially arranged for junior and senior high school students.

In this lecture, students learned about machine learning through demonstrations of “ayame classification” and “character recognition.” Although some of the content was high level, students were able to get some hands-on practice with the support of the lecturer and TAs.

After the lecture, footage of the game “Super Mario Bros.” played by AI using reinforcement learning was shown and a demo match was also held. Students thoroughly enjoyed the game and it spurred them to actively engage in discussions on various aspects of machine learning.

Bottle Flip Challenge (Day 5)

During the “Bottle Flip Challenge” event held on the fifth day of AIC Week, participants planned experiments using actual data on what types and amounts of liquids can increase the probability of success in the now popular bottle flip challenge.
In the first half of the lecture, students moved to the gymnasium to conduct an actual bottle flip experiment. Data was collected by recording on paper the number of times the bottle landed upright.

Then, in the second half, the students used iPads to compile data into Excel and create graphs.
There was a congenial atmosphere, with the elementary school students enjoying the bottle flip challenge and having fun interacting with the university students.

Through the process of conducting hands-on experiments and compiling numerical values, the program provided an opportunity for students to develop an interest in data science.

GAS Advanced – Let’s Make a LINEBot (Day 5)

At the “GAS Advanced – Let’s Make a LINEBot” event on the fifth day of AIC Week, students learned about APIs, which are technologies that connect software and web services, and then embarked on a project to create their own LINEBot and come up with AI services.
In the first half of the lecture, each student worked with a TA to develop their own LINEBot.

And in the latter half of the course, each student used the LINEBot they had created to come up with their own AI services. By incorporating the web application created in the intermediate course into LINEBot, the students were able to make the service even more useful. In this course, the TAs and students worked very closely, and were able to ask questions and consult with each other freely.

Through the hands-on experience of creating their own LINEBot and coming up with AI services, the course served as a summary and the culmination of a series of GAS lectures for students.