My Experience at Quantum Labs - 2023

disclaimer* I am not paid for, earn no commission, and am writing this to share my positive experience

What is Quantum Labs?

Quantum Labs is an organization that developed the AI Accelerator initiative, an innovative program about AI, focused on hands-on work. They prioritize making learning exciting for students and gamify the learning process.

My Story

Being Introduced to the Program

This past summer, I signed up for the Quantum Labs summer camp. I was somewhat interested in AI, and have had a bit of programming experience in the past, so with a free summer ahead of me, I thought I’d give it a try.

Meeting New People

I am generally a shy person who doesn’t usually go out of their way to talk to new people. Because of this, for the first few days, I didn’t talk much to the team I was assigned to.

But this soon changed as someone, named Vihaan, from Team Crimson, invited me to join their team. After a bit of hesitation, I decided to give it a try.

I was immediately welcomed with open arms as people were eager to get to know me. Soon, I found myself participating in discussions, working on challenge questions, and playing games during breaks.

Learning AI Content

In the first five weeks of the camp, every few days we would learn about different AI concepts. This included an introduction to machine learning, basic neural networks, CNNs, Computer Vision, NLP/LLMs, Genetic Algorithms, Reinforcement learning, Q-learning, Policy Based Methods, etc.

Each topic would be covered in a few days and each day would follow the format of starting with some videos and engaging in multiple choice quiz competitions, where we could test our understanding to learn the basics of the content. In the afternoon, we would get challenge questions that involve hands-on coding, allowing us to understand and practice real-life applications of the AI.

During the afternoon sessions, even with working in teams, we would often find ourselves stuck. When this happened, we could easily access the instructors who were always available to help. The instructors would guide us through the challenge questions, and eventually, after all the hard work, we would arrive at the correct answer.

Final Project

In the last two weeks, we were instructed to create any sort of project that used AI. I was really excited after learning about all the capabilities of AI because we were actually going to create a product fully on our own that was presentable.

Although this would be tough, knowing that I had the guidance of the instructors, I felt ready to take on this challenge. For this project, we worked in small groups, and I was paired with Vihaan.

I immediately had an idea for this project. I had created a few unity projects in the past, but because of an excessive amount of schoolwork, I had briefly stopped working on unity projects. However, I had always wanted to build some sort of AI in unity, so this was a perfect opportunity to do so.

After a ton of planning and brainstorming, we came up with lists of ideas and features that could be implemented in the project. However as we soon learned from the instructors, with the two-week time limit, we would need to prioritize the most important features to ensure we could complete the project.

Just like in this case, the entire brainstorming, researching, planning, and creating processes were all overseen by the instructors, steering us back on track when we swayed away from our goal.

In the end, we created an AI-controlled evolution simulation with an ecosystem of penguins, fish, and fish food.

The movement and rotation of the penguins and fish were fully controlled by neural networks using raycasts to input the locations of food.

This project was not a simple feat, with hours and hours of testing and debugging. Although our finished product after two weeks was far from perfect, I had gotten much further than I expected.

We had working AI creatures that would interact with the environment and each other and loads of settings and adjustments that could be made before and during the simulation.

You can find our evolution simulation here.

Through this process, I learned to manage my time according to priority, carry out my plans, work in a team, and work through errors and bugs.

To finish our product, we were taught how to make and present a pitch deck to display our projects to the rest of the groups.

After presenting, we learned about other teams’ products which were all extremely impressive, including an ASL recognizer, a fitness chatbot, a sentiment analysis bot, an AI notetaker, an AI mystery game, a gardening chatbot, etc.

Seeing all the different applications that could be made in just two weeks and the successes of all the products made me realize the extent of our learning and improvements throughout the program, and I am truly grateful I could experience it and get such incredible results.

Praise

I am genuinely amazed at the significant progress I’ve made in enhancing my general programming skills and delving into AI development. The instructors were outstanding, providing ample encouragement, guidance, and support throughout the journey.

The people I met during this experience were fantastic, contributing to a great learning environment where we were able to create some impressive projects. I acquired a wealth of knowledge and ended the program with a strong sense of fulfillment. Looking ahead, I feel much more prepared to embark on my own projects and explore AI even more deeply.

Criticisms

During the camp, we encountered a few instances where the technology didn’t function correctly, or the content seemed somewhat challenging. However, it’s important to note that the camp was receptive to feedback and promptly incorporated any suggested improvements.

While some of the course material proved to be a bit challenging, the organizers continually worked to enhance it to better suit the student’s needs. Occasionally, we faced difficulties understanding and implementing the provided code, but fortunately, there were plenty of capable mentors available on-site to assist us and get us back on track.

Final Recommendations

This whole experience not only showed and taught me about the world of artificial intelligence, it also guided me through the process of learning and debugging different applications. The community was extremely welcoming and supportive, making this extremely enjoyable and memorable. Along with this, I gained many valuable friendships with people I am still in touch with today. I would absolutely recommend this program to anyone who might want to give AI a try.