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Lift 1: Build Something Real with AI

Where We're Starting

Maybe you've never written a line of code in your life. Maybe you're an experienced engineer who just hasn't had the chance to work with AI yet. Either way, you're in the right place. This track starts from the fundamentals — not because anyone here lacks talent, but because building software with AI is a genuinely new skill, and the basics matter regardless of your background.

AI chat tools have changed who gets to build things and how. If you can describe what you want in plain English, you can create real, working software — no code required. This lift is about proving that to yourself.

What You'll Learn

By the end of this lift, you'll understand the core skills that make someone effective with AI tools — and you'll have practiced them yourself:

  • Why you don't need to write code to build software
  • How to write prompts that get you what you actually want (not what AI guesses you want)
  • How to use user stories to prompt AI with a format that works every time
  • Just enough about how AI works to use it well and troubleshoot when it doesn't
  • A simple four-step workflow you'll use all day: Explore, Plan, Implement, Verify

Sections

  1. You're About to Build Software — The big idea: AI means anyone can build real things
  2. The Skill That Changes Everything — Why specificity matters and the Three Pillars of a good prompt
  3. Prompting with User Stories — A format that delivers all three pillars every time
  4. How AI Thinks (Just Enough) — Three mental models that explain 90% of AI behavior
  5. Your Workflow for the Day — The four-step pattern you'll use in every build challenge

By the End of This Lift

  • You've used an AI chat tool to generate real output from a prompt you wrote
  • You can explain the difference between a vague prompt and a specific one — and why it matters
  • You know the Three Pillars of a good prompt: Scope, Intent, Structure
  • You can write a user story (As a / I want / So that) with acceptance criteria (Given / When / Then) and use it as a prompt
  • You understand that AI is probabilistic (different every time), stateless (forgets between conversations), and has a limited context window (the oxygen tank)
  • You can walk through the Explore → Plan → Implement → Verify workflow