Sessions

In the last session before the summer, we continued our theme of hackathons with a focus on the elements of a strong hackathon pitch. Society members were divided into teams, and brainstormed ideas and products based on the topics of healthcare and fitness. They came up with ideas ranging from AI-powered health monitoring devices to fitness apps that use computer vision to track workouts.

In the first session of the “How to Hackathon” series, society members were given an introduction to the concept of hackathons, and the elements of a strong hackathon pitch. Members started by learning the process of ideating and pitching a product; they were given the topics of ‘Gaming’ and ‘Education’.

Moving on from the theme of AI, society members were given exposure to databases and SQL, through an interactive tutorial and challenge exercise.

The session started with a discussion of recent news in the world of technology, from the launch of Threaads to news of a proposed plan for watermarking of AI-generated content.

Then, an interactive tutorial about databases and SQL was given. Members learnt the fundamentals of relational databses, queries for reading and manipulating data, and potential vulnerabilities in database design. The final challenge of the session was attempting to log in to a fake vulnerable site without the password, using knowledge of SQL learnt in the session.

The session ended with a discussion of how SQL and datbases can practically be used in real-world apps and projects.

In the last session before the summer, the theme of AI was wrapped up with a fun quiz about AI and emerging technologies. Topics ranged from language models to the ethical implications of AI. After each question, the topics covered were discussed by society members. We look forward to returning after the summer to work on new themes and projects.

Continuinung from the first session. The society was given an introduction to the concept of hackathons, and the elements of a strong hackathon pitch.

Society members were divided into teams, and brainstormed environmental technology products that utilised the computer vision model they built in the previous session. They came up with ideas ranging from agriculture applications to products for biodiversity protection.

In the first session of the year, we introduced society members to our goals for the year and started with an introduction to AI, our theme for the month.

The session started with an explanation of the foundational principles of machine learning and broad categories of AI. Then, members got hands-on experience with computer vision and classification with Google Teachable Machine, building a model which classified images of materials as recyclable or non-recyclable.

An interactive discussion of the limitations of artificial intelligence in terms of accuracy and bias was also conducted.