Secret to learning AI? Start building.

This week during our Foundations class, we were building an emergency call analyzer app that extracted the summary from a call. We ended up having the app not work for two students initially and in the process of fixing the apps learnt about enabling logging and troubleshooting. Eventually, the apps worked but even the students whose app worked learned a whole lot from the experience. Nothing teaches you better than failures and code is no different! This is one of the reasons we intentionally add points in our lessons that fail so students experience it and learn how to fix it. Encountering and fixing errors (rather than just seeing correct code) forces students to deeply engage with the material and understand why something works or doesn't work, resulting in better long-term retention and conceptual grasp - a phenomenon educational psychologists call "productive failure".

Speaking of failures, we had an emergency situation with our dryer that involved me climbing into a small space and fixing things, on a weekend! As I was discussing my ill-luck, I made a comment about how I wished I had an app that used AI to help guide me through the fix, and how all the AI advancements seem to focus on the things that I actually wouldn’t mind doing. That’s when I heard about Alfie, the butler robot Prosper Robotics was building. It was the magic I needed to see today! I just thought to myself that I’m glad the students of today are learning AI; every field is going to be revolutionized by it and being prepared is going to help them make impact in the changing job market.

-Janani

Competition Deadline: October 30, 2025 12:00 pm ET
What: A nationwide competition where students create and submit their own software applications
Who: Middle and high school students who are residents of a participating congressional district (teams of up to 4 members)
Format: Individual or team-based app development challenge
Prizes: Winning apps displayed in the U.S. Capitol Building and featured on House.gov, invitation to #HouseOfCode national reception on Capitol Hill, and potential additional sponsor prizes
Perfect for: Students interested in coding, app development, and making a real impact in their communities

As artificial intelligence rapidly transforms every industry, North Carolina education consultant Vera Cubero makes a crucial point: "This technology is just moving faster than anything we've ever seen before, and we have students graduating into the world not having learned how to use it."

The solution isn't to ban AI from schools or pretend it doesn't exist. Instead, Cubero and other education leaders are encouraging students in upper middle school and high school to start exploring AI tools safely and responsibly.

The key is treating AI as a partner, not a replacement for thinking.

The stakes are high: according to the World Economic Forum's 2025 Future of Jobs Report, about two-thirds of employers expect to hire workers with specific AI skills by 2030. Students who graduate without AI fluency will be at a significant disadvantage.

Read more about safe AI exploration for students

You can't learn tennis by reading about it. And according to Harvard Business Publishing Corporate Learning research, you can't build AI fluency through theory alone.

The findings are clear: AI-fluent employees are two times more likely to have learned through hands-on experimentation compared to those who only took courses. Among AI-fluent workers, 81% report being more productive, 54% are more creative, and 53% are better prepared to solve complex challenges.

The research reveals a critical insight: lack of opportunity, not lack of motivation, is the biggest barrier. Students need structured time to experiment with AI on projects that matter - not just lectures about how AI works.

For high school students, this means moving beyond using AI to do homework toward using AI to build solutions, create innovations, and develop genuine fluency through real hands-on practice.

Read more about why hands-on AI learning matters for students

This week, we're highlighting Raunav Mendiratta, a student of Flintolabs who experienced something every student leader knows too well: sending out a Google Form for his school club and hearing nothing but crickets in response.

Instead of accepting low response rates as inevitable, Raunav asked: What if the problem isn't that people don't want to respond - it's that forms are just too much work when on the phone?

So he built FormFlow - a text-first survey platform that makes data collection feel like a normal conversation. No apps to download. No links to click. No long forms to fill out. Just text back like you're chatting with a friend.

Here's what makes FormFlow brilliant: instead of overwhelming people with a wall of questions, it asks one question at a time via SMS. Each answer automatically gets organized into clean, usable rows that sync instantly to Google Sheets or CSV. The platform includes auto-reminders for people who haven't responded yet and a live dashboard so you can track responses in real-time.

The result? Higher completion rates, cleaner data, and zero hours spent copy-pasting messy text replies into spreadsheets.

FormFlow proves a powerful lesson: sometimes the best innovation isn't building something completely new - it's making something essential dramatically simpler. Because collecting data shouldn't be harder than asking the questions.

Check out Raunav's FormFlow pitch

While other students just consume AI, Flintolabs students learn to create with it. Our program teaches high schoolers to use AI as a tool for innovation, not a replacement for critical thinking - because understanding the difference is what will set them apart.

The next cohort starts November 1st. Spots are limited to ensure every student gets personalized attention.

Sign up today →

Our program has 5-star rating with reviews from both students and parents. If you have questions that you want to discuss before signing up, email us at [email protected].

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