The rapid evolution of artificial intelligence has democratized software creation, introducing the world to "vibe coding" - the conceptual approach of leveraging large language models to construct operational programs through natural language prompting alone. This breakthrough means foundational technical constraints are dropping precipitously, letting non-programmers turn creative ideas into standalone digital reality overnight. In this high-stakes episode, the team circles back to review their individual achievements and technical frustrations after attempting three tiered challenges: crafting an interactive game, managing dynamic file handling, and mastering spatial hardware programming.
Throughout the discussion, the team's distinct perspectives come to light. Guest Jen Carney shares her journey from utilizing standard text-based AI assistance to developing highly engaging logic apps, noting both the sheer speed of development and the occasional math counting quirks encountered with Google Gemini. Video engineer Jeff Kidd opens up about his shift from procedural skepticism to outright fascination after watching the AI build an interactive Editing Decision Trainer completely from scratch. Meanwhile, Paul Engin reveals his trials in navigating spatial design architecture using the Galaxy XR and Apple Vision Pro, highlighting where the boundaries of web-based spatial interaction currently stand. Ultimately, Dave and the team deliver an optimistic verdict: despite a few limitations with secondary file links and platform limitations, AI-driven programming expands creative potential, redefining how educators and enthusiasts can design custom digital media.
Key Topics
Low Barriers, High Output: Vibe coding effectively bridges the gap between lack of formal computer science training and successful software creation, enabling beginners to launch complex logic trees and apps within a single morning. While standard syntax barriers disappear, the user's primary skill shifts from writing code to effectively communicating design intent and iterating on logic.
The "Bespoke" Model Advantage: While foundational models can sometimes stumble on trivial math computations or specific asset links, the landscape is shifting toward fine-tuned, specialized neural networks trained on targeted datasets. These specialized tools will minimize the logic errors currently seen in broader models, radically accelerating specialized scientific, linguistic, and creative fields.
Spatial Computing Boundaries: Attempting to build or code directly inside spatial hardware environments like the Galaxy XR or Apple Vision Pro exposes distinct bottlenecks in web browser compatibility and cursor-tracking stability. Developing complex spatial immersive experiences still heavily requires foundational knowledge of hardware APIs, secondary asset hosting, and local code environments.
Failing Fast for Better Focus: Encountering technical walls or flawed initial outputs with AI generation shouldn't stop development; rather, it highlights the importance of resetting and redefining the prompt. Scrapping an excessively tangled code output and restarting with a precise, clean architectural request often yields immediate, working results.
Results of the Vibe Coding Challenge
Mentioned in the Episode
Links
Transcript
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Dave Ghidiu - Do I have anything in my teeth? All right, don't lie to me. Don't lie to me. Paul Engin - Welcome to the Immersive Lens, the podcast exploring technologies reshaping how we live, work, and learn. Dave Ghidiu - From AI and virtual reality to creative media and design, we are diving into the tools and ideas shaping our connected world. Paul Engin - My name is Paul Engin. Join us as we uncover the people and ideas driving the next wave of interactive experiences. Dave Ghidiu - And I'm Dave Ghidiu. This is the Immersive Lens. And who-who is at the table with us right now? Oh look. What-? Paul Engin - Wait, what-who-who is it? Who we got? Jen Carney - This is Jen Carney. Dave Ghidiu - Hi Jen, thanks for coming back. Paul Engin - Yeah. Jen Carney - Yeah, I'm back. Dave Ghidiu - It was only two weeks ago. Jen Carney - It was only two weeks ago. It feels like a lifetime. It's been a busy two weeks of life. Dave Ghidiu - Life without the Immersive Lens feels long. Jen Carney - It does feel long. I've been listening to the Immersive Lens sometimes on my commute. I feel like I get a lot of Dave and Paul time on my commute. Dave Ghidiu - And now you're locked in a room with Dave and Paul. And also in the booth-who's in the booth today? Jeff Kidd - Me. Dave Ghidiu - Is that Jeff Kidd -? Jeff Kidd - Yeah. Dave Ghidiu - Okay, so we are getting the gang back together today. Uh, so later in this episode, we are going to be talking about the vibe coding challenge. But prior to that, we have one super, super, super, super, super quick hot take, and that is on June 10th at Finger Lakes Community College in picturesque Canandaigua, New York, is the second annual convening-community convening-of AI. We have all sorts of AI activities. There's going to be prompt Engin -eering, there's going to be image/media generation, there's going to be conversations about the environmental impact. There's going to be-what else is going on, Jen? Jen Carney - Uh, we're going to have an open lab where people are going to be able to explore, uh, AI tools and learn, get some help. Yeah. Dave Ghidiu - Goodness gracious. All sorts of different topics, uh, playgrounds, uh, lunches included. I think it costs $45. Jen Carney - Mhm. Dave Ghidiu - Which is a steal for the level of AI fun you are going to have. So go to flcc.edu/ai and register today. Paul Engin - Can I even say immersive fun? Dave Ghidiu - It will-we actually have cornered the market here on this podcast of immersive fun. And so- Paul Engin - Okay. All right. Jen Carney - We can't use that. Dave Ghidiu - Well, we could allocate some for June 10th, I suppose. Jen Carney - We'll share. Dave Ghidiu - We'll-we'll take it to the shareholders for the Immersive Lens and see if they're-if they want to invest in it or not. Paul Engin - So Dave, why are we all back here together? What are we going to do? How are you going to start us off? Dave Ghidiu - This is the follow-up to-if you recall, two weeks ago, that we did the vibe coding challenge, where I posed a challenge to you. And before we get started, I-I-I do want to go over what those three challenges were, and you could pick one, two, or three. You could not pick zero. You had to do at least one of them. And the-the three different challenges were: one, just create an interactive. It need to be say, a website or something like that, where you can click on things, and it might be a story, it might be some narrative, could be a website or a-or a review thing. Challenge category two was file handling. So in this particular one, you need to have it either create a file that you could download, or you might be required to upload a file. And the third challenge was the webcam challenge. And in this particular one, you needed to use the webcam on the device-so it could be your laptop, or your desktop, or your phone, or your tablet-and use the webcam to do something. Does that sound familiar? Paul Engin - Yes. Jen Carney - Yes. Yes, sounds right. Dave Ghidiu - And so before we get started, I think it's also really important just to kind of revisit, that the skill level and the prior level of experience you had all had with programming. So Jen, can you kick us off and just tell us like, remind us what your previous programming experience was like, and then also, I'm curious about when you walked out of this room two weeks ago, how you were feeling about it. Jen Carney - Sure. So, um, I, uh, took one programming class in college, which was, um, as my students say, back in the 1900s. Dave Ghidiu - Back in the 1900s. Jen Carney - A long time ago. Um, I think it was in- Dave Ghidiu - Was your class in black and white? Jen Carney - Uh, yeah, my class was in-no, so for real, my class was in a 200-person lecture hall, and the professor taught programming with a overhead projector, and that he wrote on with a transparency-on a transparency, by hand, and projected it up front, and we took notes. And then we had to go sit in the basement of a building that had computers with the right stuff and-and work, um, on our own. So you couldn't even-things didn't happen in class, right? You didn't see programming happening in class. He just wrote code on a board, right? Dave Ghidiu - Wow. That's-that's actually how- Jen Carney - We didn't even have computers in the-there was no computer in the room, right? Dave Ghidiu - That's how I teach. Are you saying that was bad? Jen Carney - Um, no, it was, uh-it was a challenge. It was a challenge. Yeah. Dave Ghidiu - Oh, yeah, I bet. The overhead transparencies, wow. Wild. So when you left the room, um, what were you thinking about this AI challenge? Jen Carney - So, um, I'd like to remind our listeners that you handed us a packet of unstapled papers, just loose- Dave Ghidiu - That we-we can-we can edit that out, our faults. Jen Carney - Right, and that was not my favorite, and it had a prompt that we had to cut and paste from the paper into the computer, and the prompt was full of words I did not know, right? Um, there was a lot of things in there that I still don't know, like ARIA tags and things that I don't know what those mean. So, yeah, so I was a little, um, skeptical because I did not understand the prompt. Dave Ghidiu - And, j-so those words, we don't need to go over them now because it's super nerdy and boring, but those are things that, if you were vibe coding and you didn't use that stuff, you might run into trouble. You won't-it won't be accessible, it might not work on a phone. Um, so if you join the vibe coding class in the fall here at Finger Lakes Community College, then we will go over and kind of decrypt all that. But yeah, that was just to gi-I-I was doing you a favor. I was giving you a leg up. Jen Carney - I-yeah, it was helpful, I just didn't know what any of it meant. So I still don't know what most of it means. Dave Ghidiu - That's fine. We-we can actually talk about that maybe if we have some time at the end. But, um, and so now, before we move to Jeff and then Paul, one last question for you, Jen: how do you feel about vibe coding right now? Jen Carney - Um, I am doing it constantly. So like this morning I got up, and I started Claude working on something before I went and brushed my teeth, right? To come back later and like-yeah, and look at it. Um, so, yeah, so it's easy, and I'm doing it regularly in classes, and, um, uh, so one of the things I'm sharing with you guys today is, it's not really part of the challenge, it's just that, um, one of my students was on the volleyball team, and they won the national championship, so I- Dave Ghidiu - Woo-hoo! Woo-hoo! Paul Engin - Good job, FLCC volleyball. Jen Carney - -learned to create a congratulatory page that I could load up into our course so that, um, you know, that would feature him and-and, uh, uh, show his pictures and his stats and stuff. And, um-yeah, so I'm doing it just for fun here and there, right? To build community even, you know, not just for like learning. Dave Ghidiu - Yes, and I'm going to share a text that you sent me privately after, uh, with the world now. And it said-this out of nowhere, so later that night, you sent me a text that said, "Shut the front door. I don't need two weeks. This is so dang easy. When do I get to share what I've made? Do I have to wait two weeks? Aren't you curious?" Which is awesome. I was so relieved because I thought you were walking out of this room and you're like, "Oh, boy, what did I get myself into?" Jen Carney - Yeah, yeah. Dave Ghidiu - So good, I'm-I'm glad to hear that you're using it in your, uh, daily practice and even while you're brushing your teeth, that's fantastic. All right. So Jeff, can you please remind us of your, uh, previous, if any, programming experience? Jeff Kidd - Uh, my previous programming experience is zero. Dave Ghidiu - Okay, so big goose egg. So you were starting from, uh, the ground level. Jeff Kidd - That's correct. Dave Ghidiu - All right, and when-when you-we left the recording two weeks ago, how were you feeling? Jeff Kidd - Um, very anxious, um, just because I don't-as the Engin -eer, I, uh-video Engin -eer, like, I like to know how things work. Dave Ghidiu - Oh. Jeff Kidd - I want to know the ins and outs, like how did this, you know, the video signal get from A to B? What cables were used? What converters did you need to use? Like all the nuts and bolts, nitty-gritty. So the idea of basically trusting an AI to do all that for me and it just give me what I want is-was like, um, I don't know if I'm comfortable with that. I don't know if I like that. That's great, but I'm just kind of like, "Uh, I don't know if I'm going to like doing that." Dave Ghidiu - Interesting. And so now, after the experience, what-where are you at with as far as your feelings on AI and vibe coding? Jeff Kidd - Um, I think it's fantastic. It was a lot easier than I thought it was going to be. Um, it was really interesting-and maybe we'll get into this a little bit-to see it happening. Like, I'm watching the code get generated, and it's like the Matrix. Like, I'm just watching all of these things go by. And I'm like, "I don't know what this is. I don't know what this means." But it's cool, and it's doing the thing. So, uh, still confusing on that end, uh, and maybe if it was something that I really was passionate about and wanted to learn more about, I would do-I've dived deeper into learning what it all means. But as far as feeling more comfortable and confident in doing it on my own again, I would 100% do it again. Dave Ghidiu - Oh, awesome, because there's another surprise for you, Jeff. We're doing it-no, I'm just Kidd -ing. Um, but- I-I am- Jeff Kidd - Suddenly, your face is going to get all this colored and pixelated and, yeah. Dave Ghidiu - Uh, so I-that's actually great telemetry for me as we're kind of like finalizing the vibe coding course, because I hadn't really considered that perspective like for people who like to know exactly what's happening. And Jen, you kind of tiptoed around it like, "I don't know what ARIA means, I don't know what like MPM means." Um, but it is interesting that that's that's, uh, a need that needs to be satiated. So thank you both for that, because that'll be now design principle for the course. All right, and Paul. Paul Engin - So, um, the first time I opened up a computer was when you gave me the challenge. I've never coded before, ever. Um, so, no. Uh- Dave Ghidiu - I don't believe that for a second. Paul Engin - So, uh, I have coding background, I've coded traditionally, um, and- Dave Ghidiu - And you teach, I mean, you teach coding. Paul Engin - I teach coding, and, uh, yeah, so I'm-I'm pretty, well, well-versed in all the technical aspects of coding. Dave Ghidiu - Do you-do you teach on an overhead projector with, uh-? Paul Engin - No. Dave Ghidiu - Okay. Paul Engin - No. No. But I might-I might start, now. Might go analog, go back old school. Um, so, it's interesting because I knew the file you gave, and my comment to you was, "Do I have to use that? Because I feel it's limiting me." Dave Ghidiu - Yes, so the-the prompt that I made that would kind of set the stage, Paul found was too limiting. Paul Engin - Yes. Dave Ghidiu - Um, and I hadn't even considered that, too. So that was also good telemetry for me because I-I thought I was helping people get started and then I found out that was limiting you and you were like, "I can't do it in just one page." Paul Engin - One of my-I'm like, "What do you want me to do?" Um, and- Jen Carney - Well, I was though-I was kind of astonished with what I could make in one single HTML file. So I couldn't believe that I could make like a playable game that stored a score and came, you know, and could, um, uh, track your, um, progress, all in a single HTML file. I was surprised at that, not knowing about coding. Dave Ghidiu - And-and I can't wait to talk about your game because I did play an early iteration of it, but I haven't played through the whole thing. And Paul, after the-so just, I don't-I forgot if we talked about on-air or not, but we kind of agreed that you would level up and maybe do something a little bit more complicated. Paul Engin - Yeah, so, then after the challenge was given, we did the, um- we did an unboxing of the Galaxy XR. Dave Ghidiu - Oh, yes. That's right. Paul Engin - And, um, at the same time, you-you showed us a gem from Google Gemini that was specifically for Google, uh, or the Galaxy XR. Dave Ghidiu - Yes. Paul Engin - So I can get into that, or we can get back to that, but that was my original- that was my original go. Dave Ghidiu - That was your plan? Paul Engin - Yeah, that was my plan was to do something with the XR, and then I'll explain what happened and- Jen Carney - Uh, can you, um, fill me in on what the Galaxy XR is? Dave Ghidiu - That's true, the episode hasn't dropped yet. Paul Engin - Ah. That's right. So the Galaxy XR is a headset. Um, it's augmented and, um, virtual reality. So it's like, uh, it's Vision Pro, but a little bit more affordable. Um, but it's basically a headset that you would put on, but it's an Android device. Jen Carney - Uh-huh. So you were trying to develop an app for that. Paul Engin - I was trying to develop in it. Like, I was trying to keep it on and just do straight development with no computer. Jen Carney - And were you able to? Paul Engin - Do we want to answer this now? Dave Ghidiu - It-it seemed like it wasn't quite ready for prime time. Like, whenever he was trying to hit the keys, the keys would shift on his virtual keyboard. Paul Engin - Oh, really? Because it's all virtual. So like, when I was doing a- a, a, a print on the keyboard, I'd start the print and then all of a sudden, the- the, the- cursor would shift. And then I'd be like, "Okay, I got to try that again." And then I said, "You know what? I'm going to talk to it." So then I started talking to the prompt, but then halfway through the prompt, it detected my hand moving, and then it moved the cursor back. So I spent about 3 hours just-ugh-just doing nothing other than- Jen Carney - Yeah, that sounds a lot harder than using an actual keyboard. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Paul Engin - But, um, yeah, then it took me to a rabbit hole, and I- yeah, I don't know how you want to start this, but I can go through my process whenever you want. Dave Ghidiu - Yeah, so let me- let's start, um, thank you for kind of going around and saying everything. So, I want to start with the first app, because, which was just the interactive. Um, and so Paul, you did not do-you skipped this one because, uh, probably because of your background and your experience. So I'm going to play the interactive and I'm going to start recording on my screen so we can like use this as a, um, uh, as a- Paul Engin - Something to cut to, yeah, b-roll. Dave Ghidiu - -as b- yeah, something to cut to. Uh, let's see, I'm going to record the full screen. All right, and here we go. So I'm going to go to- Jen, let's see. You-you submitted two. You submitted the DNA Lab and you also submitted the National Champions one. Which one would you like me to take a peek at right now? Jen Carney - Both of- what? Um, is- I'm losing track of our challenges. Is the FLCC Quest one also challenge one? Or no? Dave Ghidiu - Yeah, it is. I forgot that one. Yeah, it was challenge one. So there-there's actually three. This is a game kind of like Zork, if you grew up with Zork like I did in the past. Jen Carney - Yeah, I like to think about it like King's Quest, but whatever you like to think about it. Dave Ghidiu - And Sierra Online is back. We talked about that, too. Right. Yeah. Okay. So, so, me-you want me to do the FLCC one? Jen Carney - Sure. Dave Ghidiu - Okay, so I'm going to make this a little bit bigger. So this game, when you- i- it- when you pop it open, it says, "Score-" it has a heads-up display. It says, and this is all in kind of what I would say is the old-school, uh, like video game font. It looks like it's a Windows 3.1 game. And it says, "Laker Quest: FLCC Adventure, and my inventory is zero." And it says, "Welcome to FLCC Canandaigua Campus," has a nice little image of a schoolhouse. And I thought this was just an image, but you told me later these are all emoji, right? Jen Carney - Uh, I- I don't know what they are. Um, it made it for me. Um, so I assume it's an emoji. I don't know. Dave Ghidiu - And so every interaction is required to re- So this is a lot like King's Quest, like the original versions of King's Quest, with- with the gra- the feel of the graphics. So it says, "Every interaction is required to reach 300 points and earn legendary Laker status. Type 'look' to begin your quest." So I'm going to do 'look'. And underneath this- yeah. Jen Carney - I'd just like to mention that I was excited about this and showed this off to my kids. They were not excited about it, and it turns out that, um, they're not excited about games where you have to type 'look' and 'get book' and things like that. They did not think that was fun. So I think this might only appeal to people of a certain age. Dave Ghidiu - To people who went to college in the 1900s, maybe? Jen Carney - Yeah, right, right. Exactly. Paul Engin - Who actually had to play with these. Jen Carney - Right, I- right. So they weren't impressed. Dave Ghidiu - I don't know, I think retro technology sometimes kind of grabs hold, so don't- don't stop. Jen Carney - Yeah, okay. All right. Dave Ghidiu - Don't stop. So I typed 'look' and underneath the text box it says, "Here's the commands you can use: look, go, and then, the direction, talk, take, as in an item, use, the item, inventory." So I typed 'look' and it says, "You stand in this spacious lobby, sunlight stream-" uh, "through-" "sunlight-" ooh, "sunlight streams through the glass doors. To the north lies student life, to the west are the nursing labs, to the east is the Woodsman Field, to the south, the cafeteria." Jen Carney - I suggest going to the east. Okay. Dave Ghidiu - I will go- so I will type 'go east'. And now we have an image of a dragon Laker monster, a tree, and then, Flick, and it says, "The athletic field where the Woodsman team practices. West returns to the entrance. There is a blue brick here." So I'm going to say 'take brick'. Plus 25 points. You found a blue Lego brick in the grass. Jen Carney - Uh, you should also talk to Flick. Dave Ghidiu - Okay, so now I am going to talk. Flick gives you a Laker-size thumbs up. Flick shows you how properly to throw a Laker high-five. Plus 25 points. Yeah. I'm killing it. Jen Carney - Right. Yeah. Dave Ghidiu - I'm at 75 points of 300 already? All right, so I- I'm going to do 'look' and it- it gives me kind of the same thing. Says, "Athletic field where the Woodsman team practices. West returns to the entrance." So I'm going to go west. It says, uh, "I'm back in the lobby. I can go to the west are the nursing labs, uh, to the north is lies student life, and to the east is Woodsman Field." Jen Carney - So we're not going to play through live here. Why don't you go north again. Dave Ghidiu - Look at this. This is fantastic. So now I see a picture of Andrea from student activities, the heart of student activity. Comfy chairs surrounded by mats. So this is grounded in truth, then, this game. Jen Carney - Yeah, so now you're in, you know, the center of student life here, and, um, and Andrea's picture pops up. So I um, I- these pictures are from our employee directory. Um- Dave Ghidiu - I- and I was actually really impressed- so this- this is the only one that I've looked at kind of before this podcast, because you sent me a trial that first night. You're like, "I'm so excited, this is so fun." And I was really impressed that this is grabbing photos from- like, either you or AI knew to grab the photos from the database at, on the website and embed them. Jen Carney - Yeah, so I used Gemini, uh, to do this one because, um, I was out of Claude tokens. It was right, I think, when Claude was having an issue with its token cap. Oh yeah, two weeks ago, too. Yep. Yeah, so I kept hitting my limits and I was using Gemini and I had a lot of frustrations using Gemini, um, making this. Um, it had a lot of trouble retrieving these pictures and I ended up having to, um, go in and edit the code and say, "This is the link. Do that for the other links." Um, because it couldn't figure out how to pull the picture. Dave Ghidiu - Oh, so- so you figured it out and then you said, "Gemini, here's how you do it," and Gemini was able to do it for all of the other ones. Right. Jen Carney - Gemini also did some weird things. It kept screwing up the point counting. Like, it could not do the addition to count to 300. It screwed it up like four times. And I'd say, "This isn't right. The math isn't right." And it said, "You are right to be suspicious. That does not add up to 300." So things like that. Yeah. Dave Ghidiu - Interesting. Jen Carney - All right, so in this location, um, if you, you, um, type 'look', um, you see there's a Lego table, right? And you can use the brick here. Dave Ghidiu - Oh, yeah, I see that. Use brick. 50 points. You snapped the brick into place. Andrea gives you a high-five, which I had already learned from Flick how to do the Laker high-five. Right. All right, so now go north one last time, and then we'll stop there. You don't have to play through the whole game. Paul Engin - So can I ask, when you did this, um, how does it know the directions? Did you supply the directions? Jen Carney - Oh, no, the directions are just made up. They don't correlate to our actual, um, campus. No. Dave Ghidiu - But- but do you feel like you could make this into, say, an online orientation module? Jen Carney - I mean, you could, absolutely. Yeah. And I didn't- I didn't spend a lot of time correcting things that were messed up, um, on here, um, uh, like, for instance, when you take the blue brick and then you look again, the blue brick is still on the ground, right? Like, I didn't go back and mess with it. Yeah. Dave Ghidiu - Okay, so the debugging. Yeah. And, just so, uh, everyone who's following along at home, uh, if you go north, we are in the podcast studio equipped with top-tier gear. The podcast team is ready to record. So this is a fun game. And I was really impressed. How long did this take you? Jen Carney - Uh, longer than I would like. This one took, um, multiple hours, and, like- But that's because you were using Gemini? Mhm. And you were running into issues with it. Jen Carney - Yes. Yeah. Paul Engin - Let me ask you with this, so I see there's an image- in the podcast studio, there's an image of myself, Dave, and Jeff. How- did it know to get that, or did you say, "Get these images from the website," and then it added it? Jen Carney - Yeah, I told it, um, I gave it links to your pages on the website. Paul Engin - Ah, okay. Cool. Jen Carney - Yeah. But then even there, it struggled then to pull your picture off the website. Yeah. Dave Ghidiu - So, so while we're talking about it, um, as you- I- I know you've used Claude for other things. So right now at this, as I'm asking you right now, would you rather have done this with Claude? Jen Carney - Oh, absolutely. And for some of them, once I was having less Claude token issues, sometimes I would put the exact same, um, prompt into both Claude and Gemini. For the DNA game, I did that. And it's not that, um, Gemini didn't turn out something that worked, it just turned out something so simple and so boring and so- Plain. Plain, and Claude turned out something that had multiple different options and gameplay and like was fun, you know? Dave Ghidiu - Yeah, the texture of it is just- right. Yeah. Jen Carney - Yeah. So um, Gemini just gave me something that was like a like a multiple-choice quiz. Yeah. Paul Engin - A tactical like- I- that- I right, I mentioned that in a previous podcast, too, is that I felt like if I say, "Create a neon button," Mhm. ChatGPT will create just the most mechanical, you know, boring button. But then I do the same thing in Claude- exact same prompt- and it'll give me a nice, elegant gradient with a glow. And I'm like, "Okay, this is what I was wanting." I- this- and technically, it was right. They were both right, but one is just aesthetically more pleasing. Dave Ghidiu - And- and I wonder how much like you could have gotten out of it if you had given it like a super long prompt. Not that you have to, because Claude will kind of- Claude understands the intent, I think. Jen Carney - Yeah, which is kind of creepy, isn't it? Like, it really gets- What you're trying to do. Yeah, without me having to put a lot of information in, which is crazy. Dave Ghidiu - That's awesome. I mean, awesome. Paul Engin - This is awesome, yeah. Jen Carney - Also scary. Paul Engin - Well done. Dave Ghidiu - And- and I- I do like the promise, because now that you know this is possible, especially if you're using Claude and it went a little bit faster, but the second time around will go faster. You could make this into like a really cool, uh, interactive for your- your learners. Jen Carney - Yeah, absolutely. Dave Ghidiu - I like that. All right, next up, Jeff Kidd -, are you ready? So you- do you want to give us a preface on what the- your- your app is called the Editing Decision Trainer. Jeff Kidd - Yeah. So, because I didn't know where to start or what to do, I was actually really excited to use different, um, AI tools, because I've had ChatGPT for a while, and I was just going to try Claude, to be honest. I was like, "Oh, I'm excited to try Claude." But let me just use ChatGPT and see what happens. Okay. And I gave it this prompt. Prompt was, um, "I'm in a group of three people in a vibe coding challenge. I've never coded in my life." That's a good- that's actually the best way you could have started off that prompt, to be honest. Yeah. Just- just get it out, just rip the band-aid off. "Knowing my interests, based on the prompts I've given you so far, what do you think I should do? Here's a link to the site." And I won't get into the whole, the weeds of it. But it's like, "Wow, this is great. You're perfect for this. Yada, yada, yada." All- all that stuff. Dave Ghidiu - You- you are perfect. Jen Carney - It's nice that it padded you on the back, right? It encouraged you. Jeff Kidd - It's always positive, so I take that. So, pa-pa-pa, gives me all these ideas and, um- uh, let me keep going, let me keep going. Fee- prompt. Okay, so and I was like, "Okay, uh, I like where you're going with this." It gives me some- some ideas, and it came up with this editing challenge. So this like, um, multiple choice, like, here's an editing scene, what would be the correct choice to cut to next? Or like the how the sequence is edited. Because I've prompted it about editing, you know, because I teach the the digital editing class here. And it was like, "Okay, uh, here's a prompt that I would give myself." Meaning ChatGPT generated a prompt that I would, if I wanted to, for it to be prompted to generate the the app from. And I was like, "Okay, cool." Dave Ghidiu - So it gave you the prompt? Jeff Kidd - It gave me the prompt. Dave Ghidiu - Wow. You didn't even have to ask for the prompt. It was just like, "Listen, buddy, I- you got a long road to hoe with-" Jeff Kidd - No, and- and again, this is like less than 5 minutes. Uh, here's the- I'll read a little bit of the prompt. "Create a single HTML file, including HTML, CSS, and JavaScript in one file. Requirements: no external frameworks, vanilla JavaScript only, fully responsive and visually clean, everything runs in the browser, no server." And I won't get into all the rest. Dave Ghidiu - Okay. Jeff Kidd - Does all that. Dave Ghidiu - That was kind of the stuff that was in that, what Jen was talking about earlier, kind of the specifications. Jeff Kidd - Yeah, I won't get into that here. But again, still a lot of stuff that I don't understand. And I literally was like, um- what did I say? My prompt was really funny. I- and I literally just copied and pasted it and said, "Do that." And it said, "Okay, done." Uh, and it probably took- and I had the lap- I have my MacBook Pro, it was on my lap, it probably took a solid 5 minutes, Mhm. maybe it felt longer than that just because I wasn't like- I'm not used to doing something this complicated, so usually it takes a couple seconds. But it was really crank- cranking it out. My laptop, you know, laptops, you know, they get hot when they're on your lap. So it was really- it was really cooking. Dave Ghidiu - Nice. Jeff Kidd - And it spit out almost exactly what you have. Dave Ghidiu - Okay, so let me explain what I have. It looks like it- I like the color scheme, I like the aesthetics. Got like rounded corners, got little pills, which are kind of like the the, um, rectangles with rounded corners. Paul Engin - Can I ask you, so you did this in Claude, right? Jeff Kidd - No, I did this in ChatGPT. Paul Engin - In ChatGPT? Okay. Okay. Dave Ghidiu - And- and this is almost- so this is a quiz. And it gives you a scenario. The first one is called "A Difficult Confession." And it says, "Two friends sit in a part-" so there's like a scene, right? That someone's filming. "Two friends sit in a parked car at night. One quietly admits they have been hiding a major secret. The land- the line lands softly and the other character takes a beat before reacting." And then there's three choice, and I have to choose what action to take as the editor, like, cut to a closeup, or stay on a wide shot, or cut rapidly. Right? Jeff Kidd - Mhm. Dave Ghidiu - And so we are assessing emotional dialogue here. So I'm going to go, cut to a closeup, and I got it right. Um, maybe I missed my calling. Paul Engin - This is really cool, Jeff. I- Dave Ghidiu - This is really cool. And it k- it tells you, it kind of like verifies and says like, "Here- here's a pro tip, here's more." So, th- and so I will go through the rest of them because there's only six questions. But as I'm doing that, and I'm not going to necessarily read them all out loud, um, but i- it is being captured on video. But as I'm doing this, what do you mean by, "This was almost the first version"? Jeff Kidd - Okay. There's one element at the very, very end that when you get to it, I will go into detail as to why I- that was not included in the original. Everything else except that was based off of that ChatGPT-generated prompt for ChatGPT. Jen Carney - All right, so you're saying it's right at the end like after the last question? Jeff Kidd - When you answer the last question. Jen Carney - All right, I'm about to do it. Dave Ghidiu - Oh, I- I got one right and two right, three- I'm going to read four while we're doing this. "The next scene begins before the picture changes. A character finishes an argument in the kitchen. Before we cut away, we can he- we begin hearing applause from the school auditorium where the next scene will take place." Use a J cut so the auditorium applause starts before the visual transition. I like that. Mute the kitchen scene completely one frame before the cut, so it feels abrupt. Or keep the kitchen in the audio- I'm going to go with the J cut. Um, I should, h- I shouldn't be a podcast cast, c- cast. Jen Carney - I didn't know what a J cut was, so I got that question wrong. Dave Ghidiu - I should have been a film editor, apparently. That's what this- th- that's what your app is telling me. Um, oh. Okay, well, I got number five wrong. Okay, so I'm in number six then. Is this the one that you want to talk about? Jeff Kidd - So, fit- answer- answer it. Dave Ghidiu - Okay, it says, "A reflective ending. After a long day, a student editor exports the final cut, leans back and watches the progress bar finish. The scene is meant to feel satisfying and calm rather than rushed. Let the final shots breathe with slightly longer holds on minimal-" I don't know what any of this means. "Use the fast jump cuts every second to make the ending feel more energetic. Insert unrelated B-roll just to avoid staying on any one image." All right, I- I got this one wrong, too. Turns out I suck. I only got 50%. All right, so now I can see the final results. Jeff Kidd - Oh, did you have your volume up? Dave Ghidiu - No. Jeff Kidd - Ah! Paul Engin - Now, well, now he's going to do it. He's going to do it now. Dave Ghidiu - All right, now see final results. Did you hear anything? Dave Ghidiu - I don't know. Jeff Kidd - It's a- it's, it's immediately after that last one is- Dave Ghidiu - Oh. I didn't- I didn't hear it. Jen Carney - I don't know. Oh, that's- I didn't have my volume up. Dave Ghidiu - I didn't have my volume- We're- we're in a recording studio. Paul Engin - Here, I'll, I'll, I'll go through it and see if I can, uh- Jeff Kidd - Just, ju- just, just get to the end. It doesn't matter what the answers are. Paul Engin - Yeah, yep. I'm just- So, it needs to be- Sound is off, so I need to make sure sound is on. Dave Ghidiu - All right, I'm on question six. I got- You ready? I'm going to o- I didn't hear a- Oh, my- my tab might be muted. Okay, go for it, Paul. Paul Engin - Well, uh, all right, here- Jen Carney - Mine says MP3, um, failed. Dave Ghidiu - Oh, it's because we don't have the MP3 file. Oh, I have to, uh- Paul Engin - Yeah, it has to come with the file. Dave Ghidiu - Okay, that makes sense. Jeff Kidd - Oh, that's interesting. Oh, that's so- Because you had the file, so it worked on your computer. Paul Engin - Because it's referencing the audio. Jen Carney - So these are the things that you guys understand that Jeff and I don't- Dave Ghidiu - Yeah. Jen Carney - -about, uh- Dave Ghidiu - And these are the things that we go over in the vibe coding class. This is not like a promotion for the vibe coding class, but like, like, yeah, you're right, there'd be no reason why you'd be like, "Oh, I need to-" like, it works on my computer, why won't it work everywhere? So the vibe coding class is actually like a web technologies class to help you understand that stuff. So, but I will say this about this app. This, as a quiz mechanism, is absolutely fantastic. A, it looks really nice. Paul Engin - Yeah, it does. Dave Ghidiu - B, it gives you the feedback if you got it right or wrong, which is awesome. But then it also has like your progress and it has a nice little like, coach's note, and it has a sound on, sound off button. Like this, the look and feel of this, Jeff, is absolutely fantastic. Jeff Kidd - So, I felt really guilty, honestly, because I liked it. I was like- I feel like I need to put some more attention to the details, like, put- you know, change the interface somehow. Dave Ghidiu - It's awesome. Jeff Kidd - But I'm happy with it. I really, I was like, "Uh-" Jen Carney - So Dave's challenge said we had to iterate, but Jeff was like, "Nah, it's pretty good. I'm pretty happy." Jeff Kidd - No, it's just like- this is kind of the story of my life. It's like, I'm pretty chill. I kind of don't sometimes have an opinion about stuff just because I'm like, "Well, it's fine. I'm- I'm fine with this." Jen Carney - So one of the things I'm seeing, though, is, if I use tools, some of these tools again and again, everything starts to look alike. So I can see that after I do this a couple times, I'm going to want to specify some changes in the design, because I d- I get sick of it, and everything looks the same. And we were talking about this just before the podcast, you can look at other people's stuff and tell which tool they use. Dave Ghidiu - The more you use AI, yeah, the- the more attuned you become. Yeah. Jen Carney - Yeah. Paul Engin - Yeah, and Jeff, you know what I really love about it is these scenarios that the AI came up with, right? I mean, these weren't your scenarios, were they? Jeff Kidd - No. No. Paul Engin - I mean, and these are accurate, like- Jeff Kidd - Yeah, they're pretty good. Paul Engin - -like these are good scenarios and the- the options are good, and it's like, you know, we talk about all this stuff in editing classes. We talk about how if you want a fast pace and fast action, if you want to slow things down, you know, there's different things you can do as an editor. And this is just, this is great. That was great scenarios. Jeff Kidd - And yeah, I didn't- I took the quiz, so I didn't know what the questions were, I didn't- I didn't know anything, and I got them all right. And I was like, "Oh, I guess I kind of, one thing, I know what I'm doing, and I don't know what I'm talking about." But I was like- Jen Carney - Yeah. Jeff Kidd - That's crazy that, you know, it- but I thought about it, you know, I was like, "Okay, I- I would do this," and it would happen to be the right answer. But, yeah, like, it's- it really blew my mind how it just kind of checked all the boxes for me, without me having to make a lot of changes, which is why I was sort of blown away, and kind of sat there and I was like, "I feel bad that it just worked for me." Dave Ghidiu - Why? Jeff Kidd - Just because I was like, "I don't know, like, am I doing this wrong-" like, not wrong, but I was just like, "Paul's probably going to do something that's really crazy and complicated and cool, and Jen's got more experience, she's going to do something really that's more complicated and cool. This, I just gave- it took me 10 minutes." Dave Ghidiu - I know, but- Jen Carney - That's awesome, though. Dave Ghidiu - Yeah. And one thing that I really appreciate, uh, in your kind of reflection on that, is that you did go through the quiz, and you- you didn't say this, but you verified the- the- Jeff Kidd - Yeah, I did verify it. That's true. Dave Ghidiu - -the veracity of it and to make sure that all the questions were accurate. I- knowing very little about, like, film editing, as I look at this, I'm like, "This seems right," like, but you verified it and you said, "This is right." Um, and- I mean, the one thing I really like about this is you've kind of created a platform. Like I said, the look is really nice, it has like the questions in one pane, then your progress in another pane, and the coach's note. Um, this could be, you know, if you want to make a whole curriculum, you could just swap out the questions every time. Um, it's- i- I'm really impressed by this, so, uh, pat yourself on the back. Jeff Kidd - I appreciate that. So let me tell you what the thing was. So, okay, I'm super disappointed that the sound isn't there. I'm- can you guys guess what the sound was? Dave Ghidiu - Yes. Jen Carney - Yeah, okay. Jeff Kidd - Um- That's why- I'm so bummed out. But- That- it's- I- how- okay, so how should I have- Should I tell you how I tried to get it in there, or how- can you tell me how I should have put it in there? Paul Engin - Well, tell us, tell us what your prompt and what you did, and then we'll- Okay, I'll tell you what I did. So, it- it came up with a sound, it was like a "bing," it was just like a little thing. Uh-huh. And I was like, "Well, I know what I need to do to make it, you know, funny for us, you know, like a little inside kind of of a thing." Yeah. And I was like, "Can you put that sound in there?" And it was like, "I'll try to make one." And it didn't sound anything like the the- that sound. And I was like, "Okay, can I give you a sound, and you put it in?" And it's like, "Actually, I can't do that. Here's the procedure, here's the steps of, you know, here, take the code, put-" it really wanted me to code. It legitimately wanted me to code. And I'm like, "W- we don't want that." And I was like, "Did you not re- Did you forget what I prompted you with 5 minutes ago? I don't know what I'm doing, I don't know how to do that, I don't want to do that. You do it." And it's like, "Okay, no, I can't do that." And I'm like, "Okay, so what do I have to do to do it?" And it gave me this step-by-step, "Here's what you're supposed to do." So it took- sent me a link to another site that's supposed to have taken that sound- now mind you, it's a 2-second sound effect, not even, maybe 3 seconds- and it I fed it into this site, and it broke it down into what I thought was code. And it's like, "Take that code, put it here. Add these- put these little lines of code in, and then paste it here." And I'm like, "Okay, fine, I do that." It breaks. Doesn't understand it, doesn't know what it's doing, and it's like, "You did something wrong." I'm like, "Okay, you're supposed to tell me what I did. What did I do wrong?" It couldn't do it, it wouldn't do it. We just- we kind of kept going around and around and around. So I took a break, I left. I was like, "Okay, I- I- I'll come back." And I was like, "Is there another program that could do this for me?" And it was like, "Yes, there is." And it had me download a, uh, program called Visual Studio Code. Dave Ghidiu - Oh, yeah. Paul Engin - Yeah, that's the program- Jeff Kidd - Okay, and I was like, "Here," and I pasted the- the whole- the whole thing in there and I'm like, "I need to add this sound effect, can you do it?" And it was like, "Yes. Just do these little things." And I pasted the same thing in there, the- this long code of this 2 or 3-second sound s- it still wouldn't do it right. And it's like, "Ah, I know what you need to do." And now I can't remember what it was exactly, but it did work. Dave Ghidiu - Yes, and, th- I- I'm looking at the code right now and I do not want to spoil what this sound effect is, but you can tell if you're looking at the code. So for those of you who are watching this on YouTube, you will get to see what this sound effect is. Um, and you've kind of exposed wh- one of the- the- the first lessons in web design is, if you have multiple files like images or audio, it needs to be with the HTML file. And so right now it's not, but it's an easy fix, but you went through it. And even though you said you didn't iterate that much, you get bonus points for doing- like downloading Visual Studio Code and going through the pain and suffering of- of doing what you did. Jeff Kidd - Hours. Hours. Hours. Hours. But it's going to be worth it. It's going to be so worth it. I'm going to get it on camera, it's going to be so funny. Dave Ghidiu - So okay, um- Jeff Kidd - I- I have to know, how do I get it- okay, I have to know, how do I get it in there? Paul Engin - You just bri- just give us the file, it just needs to live next to it. Jen Carney - Yeah. Jeff Kidd - You have to have- you guys have to have the file. Paul Engin - Yeah, it has to live right next to the HTML. Dave Ghidiu - Now, if you had stored it on a website, you could store it th- both those files on the website and then the user wouldn't need to like download it and install Visual Studio Code and- Paul Engin - Yeah, like when- when Dave uploads it, he'll upload your HTML and the audio, and then it'll just reference it. Dave Ghidiu - Yeah. Jeff Kidd - So it has to be like, oh, I have to find a site to host it then. Dave Ghidiu - Yes. Paul Engin - Yes. Jeff Kidd - Okay. Dave Ghidiu - But Dave will host it. Jeff Kidd - No, but I'm saying like, so if- if I did want to do it right, I have to find a website to host it. Dave Ghidiu - And, yeah, the- the easiest way, I think, to do it is to use GitHub, and we can- we'll go over this in- in the class that happens in the fall, the vibe coding class. But, um- Jen Carney - Wait, Dave. There's a vibe coding class? Dave Ghidiu - There is a vibe coding class. course happening, course happening at FLCC. Jen Carney - Is it for non-majors? Dave Ghidiu - Finger Lakes Community College in beautiful Canandaigua, New York. It's one of 55 programs, um, and it's part of the new micro-credential, too. But the- yeah, and there's a few different easy ways to do this. You can actually run it from Google Drive. You can star- store that MP3 file on Google Drive and then embed it that way. So, there- Paul Engin - And link it that way, yeah. Dave Ghidiu - -there's- Jeff Kidd - Okay, so here's my question, here's my- hit the last question, I'll ask. Why didn't it tell me that? Jen Carney - Uh, cuz you were using ChatGPT and not Claude. That's the right answer. Jeff Kidd - Oh! And that's fair. And that's fair. Dave Ghidiu - Snap, that's totally fair. Paul Engin - Here's the other thing that I've I find, sometimes you might have not- it says, it- it will say, "Name your MP3 this and make sure it's next to or in this folder," and you might have skimmed through it just saying, "I want it- I- I don't want an I just want a single file," and in your head you're thinking it's going to- and it's going to be code that it's going to generate, it's not going to be a secondary file, right? Jeff Kidd - Exactly. In my mind, I'm thinking it's going to break down this MP3 into ones and zeros or whatever and somehow it's just going to stick it in there. Paul Engin - Yeah, and you can do that with images, and I think you can actually do it with audio, too. Jeff Kidd - It's- yeah, I mean, you can do it with tones, you can't do it with- Paul Engin - You can do it with tone, yeah. Jeff Kidd - -Yeah. Paul Engin - But, um, because I think that's a- that's a big, and, I mean, you know this when- when you're editing, you, you always have those- you, when you bring in a video file, you always need reference to those files. It's the exact same thing with this, so. Jeff Kidd - Which makes sense. It totally makes sense. But it's, you know, it would have been nice to have been again- and I'm not playing stupid, I was being stupid. I was like, "I don't know what I'm supposed to do to get this in there. How do I get this in there?" Maybe I didn't give it a good prompt to understand what my question was or like, "I just want this to be part of it." Dave Ghidiu - So, you know, it's interesting, Dave, because this is kind of where I was talking about, and this- no reflection on Jeff, this is exactly what, in my head, this is an issue that can be resolved in under like 5 seconds. No, no, no, I'm just saying with, with- Jeff Kidd - I knew it was something simple. Paul Engin - -with somebody that has a, just a basic foundation of, of linking references and HTML, and then it took Jeff hours. Jeff Kidd - Hours. Paul Engin - Hours. Hours. Jeff Kidd - Hours. Paul Engin - And I think to myself, could you imagine a workforce when all of the foundational knowledge is gone and everyone's just like doing this coding and they're troubleshooting for 24 hours, and all it was was- Dave Ghidiu - The file name. Paul Engin - -the file name. Dave Ghidiu - And, that also makes me think that AI- so there certainly is like de-skilling that happens with AI. But, but this is- we're- we're skipping that. We're just skipping steps here. But what- what you've demonstrated to me, Jeff, and I'll- I'll be certainly very keenly aware of this when- when we do the vibe coding course, is that like there are some struggles where you do need 3 to 4 hours to troubleshoot because it's legitimately hard. And then there are other times where maybe you don't, but you might not ever know what the difference is, like when you need to spend 3 or 4 hours or when you need to say like, "Oh, I just need to like hit the help button," or whatever. Um, and so this has really exposed that to me, that that needs to be design principle, too, for the course, is so, is, you know, you need to know when to ask for help, and I'm not saying like- again, like, I'm glad you struggled so much on this because that's really admirable. Um, but like, there are other things that- that might be 5-minute problems that we certainly don't want people spending hours and hours doing. Paul Engin - Yeah, and- and this is an easy fix. It's literally just- just attaching the- Jeff Kidd - And I kind of proves my point a little bit, it's like, you still need to have some knowledge to solve these like, you know, basic problems. And that's- that makes me feel- actually, makes me feel better that it- that it really was something simple and I was missing something, because I think one should know some fundamentals. Dave Ghidiu - Yeah, and this also kind of exposes that like AI should have been able to fix this problem for you in 5 seconds. Paul Engin - It didn't. Jeff Kidd - Yeah, it didn't. Dave Ghidiu - Yeah, it didn't. Yeah, it didn't. Yeah. All right, well, thanks for doing that, and, uh, yeah, I want everyone to go look at this editing decision trainer. Just look at the interface, it's beautiful, it's gorgeous. I mean, the content is actually pretty rich. Um, Jen, you also made, and you had mentioned this, the NJCAA Championship, uh, website for the volleyball team? Jen Carney - Yeah, so, um, this one- so this was frustrating to me because it made such a great thing. I got it to pull the stats and the, uh, photos from the- uh, it wasn't from the athletic site, it was from the official tournament website, right? And I had it pull this stuff to feature my student, right? So I could show this off to his classmates. And it has this awesome confetti animation. Dave Ghidiu - Oh, yeah. Jen Carney - And then, I copied this HTML and put it in Brightspace, our learning management system. I cut and paste the HTML in there, and the dang thing wouldn't work. It would just scroll forever and ever and ever and ever. And so then I, and, um- it also wouldn't load any content. Um, so I was a little frustrated with it. But I, um, asked Claude why. I said, "This is- it's not working. Here's what's happening." And it, um, uh, it said, "Oh, the- there was a technical reason the confetti animation wasn't going to work well in there." And then, um, I don't know, there was something about the page size was automatically resizing in Brightspace or something, and I needed to- um, to- it needed to change the code. So it debugged it for me, um, but it took away the confetti animation. Um, this one displays nice on mobile, too. Dave Ghidiu - Yeah, it looks great on mobile. Jen Carney - Yeah. Um, in different sizes. Dave Ghidiu - Yeah, so that- that's part of- that mystery prompt had the word "responsive" in there, so it makes it look good. Um, but this is really, really sharp. I hope people take a look at this, too. Um, one thing that's worth noting, that the image that you have in here is- is not hosted, um, on your own website. It's actually taken from, I think, like the NJCAA website, um, and so you're actually embedding it, you're not downloading it, which makes it legal to use. Jen Carney - Well, there was a whole lot of back and forth, uh, Claude and I had, that I didn't understand about a hotlinking protection that it had, um, and, uh- but it, um, went back and forth and figured out how to make it work. But I did not understand what it was trying to tell me. Paul Engin - This is awesome. So, do you pointed this to the- to the site, and you said, "Specific player, create a congratulation," and it did this- Jen Carney - Mhm. Paul Engin - -from there? Jen Carney - Yes. Paul Engin - That is awesome. Dave Ghidiu - And- and was this just like one or two prompts? Jen Carney - Um- Dave Ghidiu - To generate it. I know- Jen Carney - Yeah, it wasn't a lot of prompt because this was just meant to be something quick to share out, um, to the student. Paul Engin - This is so cool. Dave Ghidiu - Yeah, it is cool. Paul Engin - And that, that issue that you ran into is a common issue that some web browsers support some animation things and other browsers don't. But, um, Brightspace specifically will- they call it sanitizing- they will sanitize the JavaScript in some places. So, that's why, in the vibe coding class that's being offered in the fall here at Finger Lakes Community College, which is part of the micro-credential in AI Integration Specialist, that we teach people like, you create the code, which you've done. Then you store the code somewhere else like GitHub or Blogger or WordPress, and then you embed it, and then- Jen Carney - I see, instead of actually- Dave Ghidiu - -putting the HTML right in- Jen Carney - -putting the HTML right in. Interesting. Yeah. Um, but this- this is fantastic, and there are two other apps that you submitted. One is this Ink and Line where you can upload an image. Jen Carney - Okay, so this, I will just tell you, my life got a little busy in the last week. Um, so- End of the semester? Yeah, and my kid graduated from college. I had to go to Pittsburgh for her graduation. It was amazing. But my plan was to walk in here with temporary tattoos for you guys, with- with your face on them, and I have the app working to make the tattoo images, and I have the tattoo paper, but it's at home, and it's not here, and I didn't have the juice to print it. So- What has to tattoo back? So this app that you're talking about, so I thought merch for you guys, right? That I'd show up with merch like a good, uh, podcast, podcast guest. Paul Engin - Oh, look at this, you can take a photo. Dave Ghidiu - Yeah, so, so, uh, th- this app is called Ink and Line and as- you can upload a photo or you can take a photo with your webcam, and then it will create it into kind of like a temporary tattoo type thing that you can then print out. This is- you got the full stack here. This is really impressive. Paul Engin - This is really awesome. Jen Carney - So, um, I, th- this one I did this morning while I was brushing my teeth. Dave Ghidiu - You made this this morning? Jen Carney - Yes, so- Dave Ghidiu - Are you Kidd -ing me? Jen Carney - -um, that's why I don't like all the options on there. But I did ask it to add an erase feature, and, so, you can brush, erase, um, and it's also got a crop feature, um, and it's got an undo to, um, when you mess up your erasing, you can go back. Dave Ghidiu - So, without knowing your process, did- did you get like the first iteration and like, "Oh, you know, it would be nice if we could erase," and then it did the erase and you're like, "Oh-" Jen Carney - Yeah. All right, so I said I made this this morning. I started making this two weeks ago and got frustrated and put it away. And then today, I opened it up and said, "I'm not going to use what I used before, I'm just going to tell it what I want." And so I learned- really, I learned what I wanted- That's- that's fantastic. -from that failure before, right? And so then I just started a fresh prompt and said, "This is what I want," and it was able to do that, instead of continuing to iterate a bad product. And this was Claude? Jen Carney - Yes, this is Claude. Dave Ghidiu - Okay, and- and sometimes that's the best thing to do is just be like, "Okay, I learned a lot of lessons, I know what I want and what I don't want," and then just start over. Jen Carney - Yeah, and so some of the features it has that I asked for today are things that Claude came up with on its own two weeks ago when I got frustrated and it wasn't working out. Um, so, right, cause I hadn't thought about, oh, I'd like an erase feature. It gave me that feature, you know? Um, and I was like, "Oh, that's smart, but I need an undo." And, you know, um, so, uh- work through. Paul Engin - This is great. Dave Ghidiu - Yeah, i- it's- it's fantastic. Um, and I encourage everyone who's listening to go check this out. Again, you can go to theimmersivelens.com. Jen Carney - Yeah, and what I sent you, Dave, um, and I don't know, you've got str- um, I don't know if you're still screen recording, but I sent you, uh, like a picture of me and my dog and my daughter, and then also the tattoo image I generated, and then how I cropped it and erased the background, and, so, you can kind of see how, uh, you can do a little bit of, um, uh- Paul Engin - That is great. Jen Carney - It's pretty neat, right? Paul Engin - Oh man. Dave Ghidiu - That's really cool. Paul Engin - And so you even ask- asked it to, uh, export it to different formats? To PNG, JPEG, or PDF? Jen Carney - Yeah, and I didn't specify what format I wanted. What- if I had time, right? What I wanted was to then have like a tiling option to, to have it arrange the tattoos on the sheet to print- Oh, yeah. -um, to- so that when it printed, it would, um, be efficient. Yeah. But I didn't have time to do any of that. I didn't even get it to print out. Dave Ghidiu - But- I mean, the point of this exercise was to be like, unlock the possibilities and now you know, that's fantastic. I love it. Paul Engin - This is- this is really cool. This is- to import an image, to modify the image, and then to save it as a format is- that is a really cool idea. So what- what made you think of this? Like, this is like- Jen Carney - I would like more tattoos in my life than what I have, and I've been trying to, to get, uh, um, AI tools to design the tattoos for me, and I actually complained to you about this the other day, Paul, uh, because, um, uh, I'm fighting with AI about, um, material that it thinks is copyrighted, but it's not because it's passed into common domain. Paul Engin - Oh, really? Dave Ghidiu - Oh, really? Jen Carney - Oh, what- but Claude or- not Claude, it's Gem- it was- I was trying to use Nanonets, and it will not- it will not use the original illustrations from Pooh, yeah, the- the- Winnie-the-Pooh, even though they're common domain now, or public, whatever, public domain. Um, they've passed out of copyright, but it won't do it. It says, "This- this would violate intellectual property." Dave Ghidiu - So you're going to write your own app to work around that? Jen Carney - Uh, no, I was going to actually maybe, you know, actually try some, uh, old-school, you know, pen and pencil. But, so, the reason I wanted to make a tattoo, um, with this is because I like- I don't want to lose the real-world connection, so I like the idea of using AI to help me create something tangible. Tangible. Paul Engin - Yeah, that's really neat. Dave Ghidiu - That's cool. This is awesome, this is great. I love it. Paul Engin - Um, yeah, I ran into the same issue with Google. I, uh, for the that next project I did, uh, I wrote the word "Messy." I wanted like, it said, "Name your character," and I said, "Messy," and it said, "Oh, we can't use the name Mess- line Messy." I'm like, "Messy is trademarked or copyrighted? I can't-" Jen Carney - Did you spell it like-? Paul Engin - M-E-S-S-I, like the soccer player. Jen Carney - Yeah, so you could have named it with a Y maybe, but no. So, but that's- I mean, how fantastic, though, that they're actually building in protections, right? Because we criticize things like Grok allowing you to take pictures of real people and make them pornographic, right? And they took a long time to fix that. Um, so, now that they're doing that, I like that. I- Paul Engin - Yeah, but this wasn't even a request to make an image. It was just to name a character. Mhm. Like, like, like, like the character, like on my screen I wanted to call it Messy. Jen Carney - Yeah, but maybe you were going to make him something devious, and then, um, slander, um, a soccer player. Dave Ghidiu - Yeah, I wonder if instead of a soccer, transparent soccer game, if you had made say, like, volleyball or horseshoes, you could have named it Messy. Paul Engin - I bet you you're right. Jen Carney - You think so? Paul Engin - I bet you you're right. Jen Carney - You think it was that? Dave Ghidiu - Maybe, I don't know. Contextual? I don't know. I- I think AI excels at context. Jen Carney - Well, that's true. Dave Ghidiu - So- So this last one Paul made, this is really cool. This is above and beyond the- the call of the the challenge, because it's a two-player game from two different locations. So, um, you- you can create the game, and this is just a soccer game, and when you say 'play', it gives you like a four-digit code. And so your friend can go to the website and type in the four-digit code like Paul's doing right now. And I see I am a kicker, and, and I'm standing in front of a soccer net and I can see a goalie in the soccer net. So I have to- I can pick like, do I want to go left high, left mid, left low, center mid? Um, I get to pick which direction I'm going to kick in. And the graphics here are kind of cool. They're- they're actually really, really cool graphics. Paul Engin - Well, I'll explain what I wanted to do, but- Dave Ghidiu - And then I'm going to, then I can say like, I can do the power, uh, whatever I'm going to do, and then I lock my choice. And then I wait for Paul to figure out where he's going to, um, go. Oh, and he saved the goal. So, this is kind of like a rock paper scissors, right? Paul Engin - Yes, and then now your view will change once you do next round. Dave Ghidiu - On next round, so now- oh, no. Now I'm the goalie and I'm scrambling. And, so, Paul and Jen are thinking, they're figuring out where they're going to kick the ball and I have to decide- oh, no, this is so terrifying. Goal. Oh, I lost. That's fun- that's a fun game. Jen Carney - That is a fun game, that's really cool. Paul Engin - This is actually like server-side, so this level of technology is a whole another level. Um, but, so, uh, quickly summarize kind of your thoughts on this, and then we'll wrap up. Paul Engin - So, I got very fut- frustrated with the Matrix mask, and I knew that this was due today, so I was like, "You know what? Let me just create a, uh, simple two-player game." Um, and, uh, originally what I wanted to do, the reason why there's no faces on here, is because you're supposed to take a picture of your face, and your face was going to be mapped on to there. Oh. And then your face would be mapped on to the other player, and then, um, but while I was going through this, it didn't happen. Um, I really enjoyed this. This was a better experience, obviously. I was able to do it in one night. But, um, I ran into issues of, this to- I'm very picky, this is horrible animation, and I was trying to get- I was trying to get the AI systems to do what- sprite sheets. So sprite sheets are just, sh- a- a big image of, um, animation sequences. And the problem is that when you're doing these, they all have to be in a uniformed block. So 160 by 160, and it should be one pose. 160 by 160, and it should be the next pose, and so on. None of the platforms could figure out how to do A sprite sheet. -a perfect measurement of 160 by 160 cell. Jen Carney - Interesting. Paul Engin - They were all off, so every time I'd do it, it'd be like, like half of a body, or half of a- like, because it's like- Jen Carney - Yeah. Dave Ghidiu - -cuz it's like- Jeff Kidd - Like, "He's good." Paul Engin - -cuz it's like- Jen Carney - So for this, um, game, this was not a single HTML file, was it? Or it was? This did not follow- I was going to say, if you can do that in a single HTML file- No, it was not. No, it was- No. Dave Ghidiu - -if you want to have like two different players on two different computers, it needs to have some back-end technology. Paul Engin - Yeah, so, which we cover in the vibe coding course, which is being offered in the fall here at FLCC. Jen Carney - Like a broken record. Paul Engin - Yeah. So, um, I have fun with it. I did, uh, another 11 Labs audio, so it did a Hispanic, uh, like exciting music for soccer. Um, and then I said, "Generate a cheer, generate a fail." Um, and so I had that running and then it was just iterative process after that. Um, but my biggest complaint was the sprite sheets and I tried to create a gem in- in Gemini that said, "You know, let's do this." Still didn't work. So then I created an Opal, um, agent- Oh my gosh, you went through all the tools. -Yeah, I went to- and I said, "Create a document," and you know, let's say it's a 1000 width pixel document, divide it into 10, so it'd be 100 each or whatever, and, um, uh, you know, then place in the center of each column the character. Dave Ghidiu - Yeah. Paul Engin - And then it created an HTML page, but the images were centered. So, isn't that so interesting? So like, I had trouble with Gemini doing math up to 300, right? And you're having trouble with it, um, making something 160 by 160. It can do such incredibly complex things. Why is it failing on these simple mathematical things? It's because it's language-based. Dave Ghidiu - A few things. Yeah, the- um, and the LLM does not stand for math. Um, but so you read articles and you're like, "Oh, they are solving like the world's toughest math problems, at like the Math Olympiads and stuff," without a problem. The- this is an oversimplification, but the issue is the models we're using are trained on anything that's written, so 2+2 is written everywhere. If you ask an LLM what's 2+2, oh, it's 4. But if you ask it complicated things, remember it's just a prediction Engin -e, so it will make stuff up or behave wonky. Some models are better than others with math and they're getting a lot better, especially when you're like contextualizing, say, um, if you're programming, sometimes you get a little bit better stuff, better results. Jen Carney - Well, I feel like this is- so, what I'm seeing is that these frontier model companies, they're creating, um, I guess bespoke sort of, um, um, uh, Engin -es now, models that are trained on specific data sets. So like, I'm really interested in that, um, the science one, the Rosalind one, that's supposed to accelerate, um, biopharmaceutical research, right? And it's going to be trained on protein structures and things like that as a data set, um, in a more intentional way. So, I'm sure, um, strictly mathematical ones, um- I- I think, right, you could make one on anything, you just have to figure out what the training data is and what's worth their time and investment right now since they've got limited resources. Dave Ghidiu - Yeah. Paul Engin - Yeah. Yeah. Well, this was awesome challenge. I, uh- Dave Ghidiu - Well, thanks for challenge- accepting the challenge. Paul Engin - Yeah, this was cool, that was cool to see what everyone was producing, and, uh, the very- it's like like a wide variety of, of apps and I think that was the other thing, is I don't know, when you gave the challenge I was like, "What do I do?" Like, it was a weird like- and I did the same thing. Jen Carney - Did you start the way Jeff did and ask-? I did, too. Yeah. Paul Engin - Yeah, I did the same thing. I said, "Give me five ideas for what I could do for, uh, you know, XR game or whatever," and, um- but it was really cool to see, you know, the- the variety. Um, last thoughts for you, Jeff? Dave Ghidiu - He doesn't have any. Jeff Kidd - Uh, I have not prepared one, but I can send you some. Dave Ghidiu - But this is just a reminder that the challenge does exist at the website, theimmersivelens.com, and all these apps, by the time you hear this, will be up on the episode page. So, this is Episode 21, I believe, right? Paul Engin - Yes, it- it is. And, um- yeah, and, any last thoughts from you, Jen, before we end? Jen Carney - Uh, I think there's like no limit to what you can create here. Dave Ghidiu - Yeah, and- and really, it's just, uh, overcoming the apprehension of even starting. But like, it's not hard. Ask it to do something simple, make like a, a timer or a to-do app, you know, if you just want to see- get a quick win. Paul Engin - And I'll- I'll just say this: learn from failure. I think you brought up a great point, and I've- I- I had to experience it several times is, you know, you go through this rabbit hole and you're like, "Oh, it's not going good, not going good." And then you can say, "You know what? Hey, ChatGPT or Claude, can you give me a prompt that would refine this so it's a cleaner overall approach?" And then maybe you start from there, and you use that prompt for a cleaner approach to maybe what you're doing, cause sometimes it gets so deep into like, golby-gook, and you're taking it in so many different directions that, you know, that cleaner version is going to be a better, um, and faster development. So, well, that's all the time we have today, I'm Paul Engin -. Dave Ghidiu - And I am Dave Ghidiu -. If you enjoyed today's conversation, be sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode. Go to the website, check out the apps that all these people made, they are fantastic. And let's be careful out there, folks. Paul Engin - And share it with a friend, colleague. Until next time, stay curious, stay connected, and thanks for looking through the Immersive Lens with us. Dave Ghidiu - This episode was Engineered by Jeff Kidd. Paul Engin - Thank you, Jeff, and thank you, Jen, for taking the challenge and coming back and being a part of this. Dave Ghidiu - And now you're programmers, you're software Engin -eers. Jen Carney - Oh, good. Good. Something new for my resume. Paul Engin - Recorded at Finger Lakes Community College podcast studios, located in beautiful Canandaigua, New York, in the heart of the Finger Lakes region, offering more than 55 degrees certificates, micro-credentials, and workforce training programs. Dave Ghidiu - Ooh, that was a lot. Paul Engin - You should vibe code like a, a, ElevenLabs this so- Dave Ghidiu - Oh, I might, we just hit the space bar. Uh, thank you to public relations and communications, marketing, and the FLX AI Hub. Paul Engin - Eager to delve into passion, discover exciting and immersive opportunities at www.flcc.edu. Dave Ghidiu - And as part of our mission at FLCC, we are committed to making education accessible, innovative, and aligned with the needs of both learners and employers. Paul Engin - The views expressed in this podcast are those of the host and guest, and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Finger Lakes Community College. Dave Ghidiu - Music by Dan from Pixabay. This is the Immersive Lens.
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