Make Something Weird: Creative AI Lab

Lab One Small Idea, Two Versions — Alpha introductory creative play with a chatbot, an optional Notebook Notebook, and Resource two prepared walkthroughs.
Lab Build a Tiny Virtual Museum
Lab From Inspiration to Invention

Audience

Beginners who learn best by making something playful, personal, visual, or strange.

Purpose

Build confidence through creative play while reinforcing prompt iteration, judgment, and safe tool use.

Learning Outcomes

By the end of this module, learners should be able to:

Use AI to create or revise a simple creative artifact.
Improve a prompt through iteration.
Explain what they changed and why.

Core Ideas

Creative play builds confidence.
Low-stakes making helps learners experiment.
Iteration matters more than one perfect prompt.
The learner remains the creative owner.

Class Flow

Creative framing
Demo: rough idea to revised artifact
Hands-on making lab
Show-and-tell
Reflection on revision choices

Hands-On Lab

Begin with Lab One Small Idea, Two Versions. Learners choose a small creative idea, use a chatbot for one bounded contribution, and compare a first version with a deliberate revision. They explain what they kept, rejected, or changed; notes and sharing are optional. The text-first path requires no Blender or image-generation tool. Self-study, Zoom, and in-person use follow the same learner-owned decisions; watching the facilitator's example alone is preparation.

Lab Build a Tiny Virtual Museum — an intermediate project: build a small Blender gallery from a themed, well-credited image set. Download and install Blender (free) before starting; no AI tool or public sharing is required.
Lab From Inspiration to Invention — turn a general creative spark into a source-neutral brief, small optional artifact, and provenance note.

Lab Materials

Required: access to a chatbot for the live AI activity. Operate it yourself, direct a partner, or guide a facilitator-operated exchange.
Follow the Lab One Small Idea, Two Versions Activity or its optional Notebook Notebook for the prompts and revision steps.
Use Module Safety: Share Less, Notice More for the privacy and safety pause.
The Resource planning card is optional when a separate record would help.
Sharing is optional. You may describe the two versions aloud, show them to a partner, or keep the comparison private.

Reflection Questions

What did you ask for first?
What did you change after seeing the result?
What felt like your creative choice?
What would you make next?

Take-Home Artifact

A creative artifact plus a short revision note showing the prompt journey.

Risks to Avoid

Using copyrighted, private, or sensitive source material without permission.
Letting tool novelty replace learning.
Making learners share personal creative work if they do not want to.

Facilitator Notes

Keep the session playful but bounded. Offer choices so learners can make something silly, practical, beautiful, or useful.

Accessibility and Inclusion Notes

Offer nonvisual artifact options. Let learners work in pairs. Avoid assuming everyone wants to make public-facing art.

Cross-Generation Potential

Maybe. This can work well for mixed-age groups if prompts are family-friendly and sharing is optional.

Creative play builds confidence.
Human ownership remains.
Friction is information.
Trust, but check.

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