With only about 100 students, clubs at Mass Academy might be small, but that doesn’t mean that the members are any less passionate. Earlier this year, Joseph Yu and Charles Tang, two Mass Academy seniors, started AI Club. 

Running throughout A Term and B Term, Joe and Charles host weekly meetings to share their passion and teach other students about artificial intelligence, also known as AI. They started AI Club because during their junior year, as they completed STEM I projects that utilized AI, they recognized the need for structured lessons on how to use AI.

When asked how to describe AI to someone unfamiliar with the software, Charles explained, “Well you have a box, you teach a box to do something, and then the box magically does something.” While it might sound simple, after working with AI for the past year, Charles and Joe wanted to give juniors the resources they wished they had last year to start their journey with AI.

Joe explained, “Although there are plenty of resources online, we thought that a club with structured lessons about AI would be helpful. AI club is a good resource for how and where to get started with AI.” 

Each club meeting consists of an explanation about a new aspect of AI, a discussion, and then live coding as the juniors try to implement what they have just learned. With so many aspects of AI, each meeting builds off of the previous week but still teaches completely new topics. 

As opposed to other Mass Academy activities like Physics Club and Robotics Team, there are no competitions for AI Club. While there are certainly tournaments out there, Joe and Charles are more focused on learning, with their main goal being educating the other members on the basics of AI. With projects such as STEM Fair, Assistive Technology, and Apps For Good, there is no shortage of opportunities for the AI Club members to showcase their new knowledge.

Currently, around ten juniors attend AI Club weekly, but Joe and Charles expressed interest in AI Club continuing and growing larger as the years go on. “It would definitely be cool if some of the current juniors took over next year, and they could definitely use the curriculum that we’ve created,” said Joe as he reflected on his long-term goals for the club.