Events
Workshops and training sessions from the CUNY AI Lab.
Fall 2026 Workshop Series
All events, unless otherwise noted, are held in the New Media Lab (Room 7388.01) at the CUNY Graduate Center.
Vibe Coding Series
A three-part series on building digital projects with AI-assisted coding, from command-line foundations to a bring-your-own-project clinic.
Vibe Coding I: Foundations
This workshop introduces the fundamentals of using AI tools to develop a digital project, including core concepts behind LLM-assisted coding, setting up a development environment, working in Terminal or PowerShell, and using Git and GitHub to track changes.
No prior coding experience is required.
Vibe Coding II: Building a Prototype
This workshop moves from the fundamentals of AI-assisted coding to building a small digital project. We'll work through prompting, project planning, iterative development, and troubleshooting as we collectively build a sample project.
Prerequisite: Participation in Vibe Coding I, or prior familiarity with the command line and Git/GitHub.
Vibe Coding III: Bring Your Own Project Clinic
Bring a digital project you're building (or an idea you want to get off the ground!) and spend the session working on it with support from facilitators. We'll begin by helping participants clarify goals and identify next steps, then shift into structured working time for building, debugging, and experimenting with AI-assisted development. Projects can be at any stage.
Prerequisite: Participation in Vibe Coding I and II, or comparable experience working with AI coding tools, the command line, and Git/GitHub.
CUNY AI Lab Sandbox Series
This three-part series introduces the CUNY AI Lab Sandbox and explores how instructors and researchers can move beyond general-purpose AI chat toward custom models grounded in their own goals, materials, and workflows. Across the series, participants will build and test a custom AI configuration using system prompts, knowledge collections, skills, and tools.
Getting Started with the CUNY AI Lab Sandbox
This workshop introduces the CUNY AI Lab Sandbox and the possibilities it offers for experimenting with generative AI in teaching and research. We'll explore the models available in the Sandbox, compare their affordances, and introduce system prompts to shape how a model behaves throughout a chat. Participants will then design and test a system prompt for a specific teaching, research, or scholarly workflow, considering the model's role, procedure, constraints, tone, and expected output.
No prior experience with the Sandbox is required.
Building Custom Models with Knowledge Collections
This workshop focuses on moving from a system prompt to a custom model grounded in your own materials. Participants will create a model card in the Sandbox, select and configure a base model, and learn how knowledge collections allow AI models to retrieve information from uploaded syllabi, readings, assignments, research materials, datasets, and other documents. We'll consider both the technical and intellectual work of curating a useful collection: what to include, how to organize documents, and how to test whether the model is retrieving relevant material rather than producing generic responses.
Participation in the introductory Sandbox workshop is encouraged but not required.
Extending Custom Models with Skills & Tools
In the final workshop of this series, we'll extend custom models beyond prompts and documents by introducing skills and tools. Participants will learn how skills can encode repeatable procedures—for example, guiding a student through a close reading or walking a researcher through a particular analytical workflow—and how tools give models additional capabilities such as web search, querying files, running code, or generating images. Participants will design a skill for a specific teaching or research task, add it to a custom model, and test how system prompts, knowledge collections, skills, and tools can work together as different layers of an AI-assisted workflow.
Prerequisite: Participation in Building Custom Models with Knowledge Collections.
Co-Working Sessions
Drop-in sessions for structured working time on your AI projects. Bring what you're building and work alongside others. Facilitators are available for troubleshooting, feedback, and help with figuring out next steps. Participation in the Vibe Coding or Sandbox workshop series is not required.
Looking for a workshop from a previous semester?
Browse Past Events