Get Inspired by A.I. Videos

Below are some A.I. videos that we’ve developed, hosted by our curriculum developer and chief AI Ninja, Barnas, to showcase some of the coolest technologies in A.I. and a number of the concepts behind them! Learn about some things you can do yourself, for FREE with A.I., and about some of today’s coolest A.I. technologies.  

Teachers, Parents & OST Providers:  

Most of the videos below are geared toward advanced middle school or high school level students (with some activities that can be done by anybody like the beginner portion of the AI Music video, and a non-computer activity like making your own hominid skull). Please be sure to watch videos first, before using them in your own instruction/courses.  Depending on the level of your students, you might want to be present while children watch, so you can answer any questions about difficult concepts.   And if you have any questions, please just reach us, and tell us what tools and resources would help you, in your AI education endeavors. 

 

A.I & Related Activities You Can Try Yourself:

Make AI Art! – this video is geared toward advanced middle school and high school students who want to learn how to combine brush stroke and  composition styles from famous painters and mix them with their own photographs, while learning a little bit about “neural style transfer” neural networks.  In this example, we use a picture of a frog from nature, and combine it with dozens of different styles to show a wide range of effects you can do yourself, with free software.

 

Make AI Music! – Are you ready to rock with AI? This video is for any music lovers out there. From total newbies to advanced musicians, everyone can learn a little something about how to use AI to enhance your music productions. In this video, we’ll go through three different tutorials about how to generate completely original AI music, for free, using a web browser, some free software, and if you’re feeling like a challenge, some coding. This tutorial is based the idea of using MIDI files, with recurrent neural networks (RNN’s) in Tensorflow Magenta. Rock out!

 

The Mandelbrot Set & How To Make Your Own Fractals: While fractals themselves are not really AI, they do represent a set of math equations that can emulate some of the patterns found in living things, and throughout nature.  Since AI is a technology based on the idea that computers emulate human thought, the Mandelbrot set can inspire you artistically to think about the potential for computers in the age of AI.   With a few simple Github programs and Tensorflow, you can make fractals yourself, easily!

 

How to Make AI-Accented Space Art – Among other things, host Barnas Monteith heads up Tumblehome’s art team, and trained for several years at Boston’s School of the Museum of Fine Arts.  In this video, he walks quickly through the creation of some digital art, in the genre of space / alien science fiction scenes.  Some of the art used in this video is generated by a technique similar to the concept covered in the video above, known as neural style transfer.  This video is geared toward any age, but the Photoshop skills required to try and do something like this, are somewhat mid-level to advanced; this is not a step by step tutorial, but more of a demo of how digital art can produce beautiful results, especially when accented by A.I.-generated elements.

 

Make a Talking Pumpkin – Spooky Halloween AI Video – In this video, we show how you can use a program known as EBSynth to take still images and animate them, by mapping another video onto it, using AI.  This allows you to make some really cool video effects, that you can incorporate into your own movies or Tiktoks.  The software is fairly simple to use, and it is possible this can be used with middle school students, but may be best suited for high school students and older.

 

The Evolution of Intelligence & How To Make Your Own “Intelligent” Human Ancestor Skull Activity – In this video we discuss how natural intelligence evolved rapidly in a short period of time.  This same rapid rise in intelligence is being seen in AI today.   With a little cardboard, hot glue, plaster, and a few other basic supplies, you can make your very own ancient hominid skull, along with Barnas, in this cool & fun activity video you can do at home, for next to nothing.

 

Learn About Cool Modern A.I. Topics:

A Cool Video About AlphaFold AI Protein Folding Technology – Ideal for teachers to bring up as a discussion point in classrooms, or in after school programs, to discuss an example of some of the latest technology in AI, and what AI is capable of.  Alphafold is the first computer technology that can predict protein folding shapes as well as humans with expensive lab equipment.  The ability to be able to quickly determine protein shapes from simply providing a gene sequence has the potential to be able to solve some of the biggest problems in medicine.   Some of the biology topics covered in this video are usually covered in high school, but some advanced middle school students may also find this interesting as well.  Try a discussion about Alphafold with your students!

 

Dinosaur Tracking Using AI! – In this video, we talk about a subject that kids and adults both love — dinosaurs! Barnas, who spent many years conducting dino dig expeditions for Tufts & Harvard MCZ, walks us through a Massachusetts dino track site, using drone technology, combined with photogrammetry and some AI to find cool & rare fossils!

 

Drone & Motion Tracking Artificial Intelligence – Here, Barnas discusses how motion tracking is used in today’s most advanced defense equipment and drone technologies, and why often you don’t need “true AI” to accomplish a recognition task.   In this video, we demo some basic motion tracking python programs that you can try yourself!.

 

AI & Paleontology: Mentoring Science Fair Students on Cool Science Topics! – Barnas talks with a student, Christian — one of his science fair mentees — about how artificial intelligence might be used in the field of paleontology.  One day soon, it will be easier to find fossils, due to machine learning and localization / object detection (using Tensorflow and Keras).  Check out this cool new technology developed by a young student!