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MIT IAP 2025

How to ship almost anything with AI

Class number:6.S093
Level:Undergraduate
Units:6
Grading:P/F
Dates:Jan 20 - Jan 27
Description

What is this course about ?

The rise of large language models has transformed software development and prototyping. Now, a single engineer can build and launch a full-scale app in hours or days. Mastering rapid prototyping is crucial, empowering students to become 10x developers.

This course teaches AI-driven rapid prototyping, equipping students to design and ship apps quickly. You'll gain hands-on experience building and launching AI-first web apps using the latest AI-driven dev tools.

Who are we ?

We are Sundai Club, a club founded by hackers and entrepreneurs. We got frustrated with the FOMO caused by the rapid development of AI and decided to start building cool things every Sunday. Since then, we build more then 50 projects, grew the community to more then 100 hackers and learned a lot along the way. We want to share our insights and help you to become a 10x developer. You can check some of our projects here.

Who is this course for?

This class is mainly for technical students who are interested in learnign how to quickly prototype nice-looking web-apps. The main requirement is to love building stuff and learn new things. We ask to have some experience with programming though:

Prerequisites:

  • Good knowledge of Python or JavaScript
  • Be comfortable with GIT
  • (nice to have) Experience with JavaScript
  • (nice to have) Basic knowledge of Machine Learning (i.e. 6.390)

What you will learn ?

Throughout the course we hope to share a little bit of the Hacker mindset. We will also share some of the tools and techniques that we use to build things at Sundai and you will be able to:

  • Understand the basics of front-end development and use LLMs to quickly prototype UI
  • Know how to design heavy AI-powered backends and APIs
  • Get experience with cloud-hosting and deployment
  • Have a good understanding of how to use AI to build things
  • Fall in love with building (if you still did not)
Course Schedule
Monday, Jan 20
Day 1: Introduction to AI app building
  • Lecture 1: Best practices for rapid prototyping
  • Lecture 2: Core concepts: fine-tuning, API services, cloud-hosted models
  • Mini-project 1: Fine-tune a simple model, build a gradio interface for it
Tuesday, Jan 21
Day 2: Front-end, UI/UX, User Registrations
  • Lecture 3: Building a web page with next.js, UI/UX
  • Lecture 4: User registration best practices, hosting, https/http
  • Mini-project 2: Create a simple web-app with user login functionality
Wednesday, Jan 22
Day 3: Backend, API, Payment systems
  • Lecture 5: Best practices on backend development, cloud hosting
  • Lecture 6: Setting up the API, databases setup, introduction to payment systems
  • Mini-project 3: Host a simple Python application that accesses a database
Thursday, Jan 23
Day 4: How to choose ideas and set up hypothesis
  • Invited speaker: Ethics consideration when building AI apps
  • Workshop: Building something that matters
  • Selecting ideas and hypothesis for the final project
Friday, Jan 24
Day 5: Optional day
  • Optional lectures from industry experts
  • Office hours and work on final project
Monday, Jan 27
Final Project Presentations

Live-demo presentations of the final projects

Grading

Grading will be P/D/F, with the following distribution:

20%
Attendance/participation
40%
Mini Projects
40%
Final Project
Final Project

Students will be able to apply what they've learned by building an AI-first application of their choice. Students will choose their ideas and create hypotheses during the workshop on Thursday, the 23rd.

The final project is largely open-ended, but students are encouraged to consider user needs, ethical implications, and feasibility. The project with live demo presentations is due by Monday, January 27th.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I take the class?

The class is open to both undergraduate and graduate students at MIT. Students from universities with official MIT cross-registration programs (such as Wellesley and Harvard) are also eligible to participate (please check with your department).

What is the time commitment?

The course runs for 4 days (Jan 20-23) with daily sessions from 10am until 4pm, including lectures and project work. Friday Jan 24 is optional lectures and office hours, plusthe final presentation day (Jan 27).

Can I attend remotely?

We will record all sessions and make them available online. However, in order to get credit, you need to attend the classes in person.

What should I bring to class?

Bring your laptop with a working development environment. We'll provide detailed setup instructions before the course begins. All other materials will be provided.