From Tic-Tac-Toe to Chatbots, Lowell Schoolchildren Engage with AI
Image by Brooke Coupal
04/24/2023
By Brooke Coupal
Students at the Bartlett Community Partnership School in Lowell proved to be no match for “Chris,” a virtual player programmed to be unstoppable in a computer version of tic-tac-toe.
“We can’t beat Chris!” competitive seventh-grade students yelled in amusement while gathered around computer screens.
The tic-tac-toe game was one of five interactive projects developed by UML students to get children engaged with artificial intelligence (AI). The projects were created as part of a course taught by Fred Martin, Kennedy College of Sciences associate dean for teaching, learning and undergraduate studies and a professor in the Miner School of Computer and Information Sciences.
“AI is increasingly a big part of our world, and it’s really important that everyone in modern society understands it,” Martin says. “We want to introduce it to kids at an early age so that they become empowered users of AI.”
Image by Brooke Coupal
Shana Paleologos, a STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art and math) teacher at the Bartlett School, welcomed the UML students into her classroom, where they showcased their AI games to children in grades one through eight.
Mechanical engineering Ph.D. candidate Elyas Irankhah, a native of Iran, designed the tic-tac-toe computer game, which turned out to be a big hit with the students.
“Tic-tac-toe was my favorite, because it was really fun to play against AI,” one sixth grader said.
When thinking of a fun way to get students to interact with AI, Irankhah decided to go with a classic game that the children would recognize. He used the Python programming language to create three AI opponents with varying skill levels, including “Chris,” the toughest virtual player.
“Kids can develop problem-solving and critical thinking skills by playing the tic-tac-toe AI game,” Irankhah says. “They learn to analyze the game board, predict their opponent’s moves and make smart decisions to win.”
Image by Brooke Coupal
“One of the big things with youth learning is interaction,” Dimino says. “Being told about AI is one thing, but being able to interact with it helps them better understand how it’s actually working.”
The “AI for ASL” game left seventh-grader Elias Padilla intrigued.
“It was really cool to see AI look at my hand through a camera and figure out what I was trying to say to it through hand signs,” he said.
Students also learned about how self-driving cars detect obstacles on the road through computer science Ph.D. student Pranathi Rayavaram’s project. She developed a virtual game that let students drive three car models, each programmed to recognize obstacles such as traffic cones, animals and pedestrians. Not all models could identify all objects.
“It teaches the students to be a responsible user of AI without naively trusting it,” says Rayavaram, a native of India.
With the recent popularity of ChatGPT, computer science Ph.D. student Saniya Vahedian Movahed of Iran and junior Erika Salas of the Bronx, New York, decided to create their own AI chatbot for students. They used the application programming interface of ChatGPT before setting up parameters to make the chatbot more age-appropriate for elementary and middle school students. Children using their chatbot could ask questions about astronomy, shoes or dinosaurs, and the chatbot would respond with intelligent answers.
“It’s really fulfilling to see the students use our program,” Salas says.
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Garima Jain ’22 introduces an AI game focused on chemistry lab safety to a sixth-grade student.
Two of Martin’s former students, Garima Jain ’22 and Vaishali Mahipal ’22, both of India, and a former visiting doctoral scholar, Ismaila Sanusi of Nigeria, also joined the fun by creating their own game to present to the Bartlett School students. After looking through the school’s curriculum, the group decided to create an AI game focused on safety in a chemistry lab. In the game, students select items they think are acceptable to bring into the lab. The AI model then learns which items are safe and not safe, based on the student’s selections.
Each game that the UML students developed for the Bartlett School students impressed Kara Haas, instructional technology specialist for Lowell Public Schools.
“These games are a great starting point to get them interested in AI,” she says. “It’s really important to show the kids that this can be fun and engaging.”
Bartlett School Principal Peter Holtz agrees.
“The event was a great introduction to AI for our students,” he says. “It was wonderful to see our students so engaged with the different AI stations."