AI Makerspace

Vibe Coding and AI-Assisted Development with Cursor

FourthBrain

University of Dayton

Fannie Mae

"Dr. Greg" Loughnane, Ph.D.

Co-Founder & CEO @ AI Makerspace

Katerina “KatGPT” Gawthorpe, Ph.D.

Co-Founder @ eve.ai | Econometrics @ Fannie Mae | Instructor @ AI Makerspace

Get your AI-assisted interactive development environment set up like a real AI Engineer

Go beyond vibe coding to AI-Assisted development

From version control with GitHub, to command line programming, to package and environment management, start here.

Learn the hard parts no one talks about

While git is still the same, actually using version control is easier than ever. Just like writing code in general!

Spoiler: It's easier now with AI-Assist

🧑‍💻 ON CODING AS AN AI ENGINEER- Do you code every day?- If not, are you committed to coding every day as an AI Engineer? If the answer to both of these questions is "No," this class is not for you. 💼 ON LEADING AI ENGINEERING TEAMS- Do you manage a team of people that writes code every day? If "Yes," this class might be for them. ------ 🌍 **EXPANDED CAPACITY AND INTERNATIONAL TIME ZONES FOR COHORT 7** Section 01: Live Sessions are Tuesday/Thursday 7-9 PM Eastern Time (ET), led by Dr. Greg &amp; The WizSection 02: Live Sessions are Tuesday/Thursday 7-9 PM Central European Time (CET), led by International Instructors Let us know which section you're applying for in your application! **KEY CURRICULUM UPDATES FOR COHORT 7** 🔴 [Deprecated]- Classic LangChain RAG Chains (in favor of most up-to-date LangGraph implementation)- Fine-Tuning of LLMs &amp; Embedding Models (we now consider these techniques table stakes ... learn LLM Engineering for free @ bit.ly/llm-engineering)- Chainlit for Front Ends (no longer a best-practice tool for creating front-ends)- Hugging Face Spaces (no longer a best-practice deployment tool for quick POCs)- Hugging Face Inference Endpoints (no longer the easiest way to deploy high performance open LLMs and embedding models endpoints) 🟢 [New Additions]- A custom AI Makerspace MCP server integrated into Cursor that has all of the docs and tools that we'll use in the course!- Model Context Protocol (MCP) &amp; Agent2Agent Protocol (A2A)- Vercel for quick end-to-end POC deployments- Together.ai for quick deployment of Llama-3.3-70B-Instruct-Turbo and open embedding endpoints- A focus on vibe-coded custom front ends with React (or other) framework- OpenAI Agents SDK (released March 2025)- Code agents with Hugging Face's Smol Agents Framework (released ~Jan 2025)- CLI Coding Agents with Codex (released April 2025)- Computer Use Agents with OpenAI's Responses API (released March 2025) ------ OUR COMMUNITY🏗️ 🚢🚀 AI Makerspace is on a mission to create the world's leading community for people who want to build, ship, and share production LLM applications. Welcome! We invite you to join our close-knit AI Makerspace community on YouTube (learn live weekly with us for free at 10 AM PT on Wednesdays!) or Discord to start building, shipping, and sharing with us today! https://aimakerspace.io/ OUR COURSEThe AIE Bootcamp is truly a bootcamp. It's hard. It's a grind. But it will transform you! It will get you comfortable thriving at "The LLM Edge" and beyond. Our students don't just learn; they transform! Plus, every cohort culminates in a live Demo Day experience! Many of our graduates have launched entirely new startups based on their demo day presentations! To hear our student's stories and for a quick glance at all the tools you'll master, check out the following link now! https://aimakerspace.io/the-ai-engineering-bootcamp/ OUR ETHOSBuild 🏗️, Ship 🚢, Share 🚀! This is the secret to success in a 21st-century workforce, and you will live this every class, every week of the cohort! 🧑‍🤝‍🧑 Specifically, you will get hands-on experience building and sharing complex LLM and agentic applications weekly, receiving constant feedback during live sessions and through your homework submissions via instructors, peer supporters, and your fellow cohort members. 🙋 WHAT ARE THE PREREQUISITESYou must be familiar with Python programming, prompt engineering, and data science. Learn more about prerequisites here: https://bit.ly/aie7-prereqs 🙋 How will I know if it's right for me? If you're unsure if this course be a fit for you, you'll find tons of resources on this page to help you decide, including: 📜 Curriculum &amp; Detailed Schedule: https://bit.ly/aie7-curr🤩 Demo Day Videos (from cohort 5): https://bit.ly/aie5-demos🎤 Student Interview Videos: https://aimakerspace.io/category/transformations/ Here are a few long-form pieces of writing about the student experience:- Richard Gower, Cohort 3: https://bit.ly/aie-cohort-3-reflections- Ches Roldan's "20 Tips to Survive AI Makerspace’s AI Engineering Bootcamp (as a non-technical person)": https://bit.ly/aie-20tips 💰 How much do the tools cost? Don't worry! This course is for the GPU-poor among us! This course adapts to industry-standard open-source software and compute hardware and is cloud platform agnostic. We strive to keep your additional costs low (below ~$100 total). Check Q&amp;A for more info!** WHO HAS TAKEN THIS COURSESince its launch in January 2024, over 250 people have taken the course! The most successful participants have been Software Engineers and Developers or Data Scientists and Machine Learning/AI Specialists, indicating a focus on analytics, modeling, and artificial intelligence. Here is a list of companies whose employees have already taken the course: Google, Meta, Microsoft, Amazon, Samsung, Salesforce, IBM, Oracle, Bloomberg, Deloitte, Atlassian, SAP, Infosys, ServiceNow, Shopify, NetApp, Autodesk, Jio Platforms, JP Morgan Chase (JPMC), Walmart, Chevron, Expedia, NTT Data, Ernst &amp; Young, Fannie Mae, National Grid, State Farm, USAA, BMO, TD Bank, Mercer, Kiewit, BP, CVS, Safran, Appian The most important thing for anyone taking the course is to take it seriously. This advanced course requires commitment, debugging, resilience, and tenacity. These personal attributes matter much more than your current company or job title. Whether you're coming from a software engineering or data science background, to be a world-class AI Engineer, you'll need to know both. This class will teach you the lego blocks of building production-grade LLM applications software as an AI-Assisted Developer. This is where your journey begins! WHAT STUDENTS (REALLY) SAID ABOUT COHORT 5:We collect feedback every single class. Here is an analysis of the 160 pieces of feedback that we received on the question "Is there anything else you'd like to share with us?" that we asked at the end of each of the 20 live sessions, completed by ChatGPT with the o1 model in April, 2025. Highly Positive Themes- Students repeatedly praise the instructors’ expertise and clarity.- Many love the breakout rooms, citing them as a key differentiator from other courses.- There is strong enthusiasm about practical coding sessions, community support, and peer supporters.- Several comments mention that they are already deploying real applications and seeing immediate value, which is a significant selling point for future students. Neutral or Constructive Feedback- A few suggestions for improving logistics (e.g., link consistency, environment setup, more thorough instructions).- Requests for additional examples and smaller breakout groups.- A handful of people struggled with first-class onboarding or missed classes due to personal constraints. Negative or Dissatisfied Feedback- Some frustration around external tool links (Discord, GitHub) not working seamlessly.- Occasional complaints about environment setup challenges.- A single extended critique about missing the first day and feeling lost initially, but that student did eventually get on track. We are always working to improve our product, our student experience, and our processes! You can count on the fact that we've taken the feedback into account for Cohort 6 and beyond! Here were the top 10 direct quotes: 1. “One of the best lessons I’ve ever had. The instructor’s level of expertise is high and his communication is extremely easy to understand. I have grasped all the concepts.”2. “This session was pure gold, seeing actual applications, really nice!”3. “I am having lots of fun and learning. LOVE THE ENERGY! Let’s go.”4. “The breakout rooms are absolutely fantastic. Peer Supporters are bae.”5. “The breakout rooms are just so good – easily sets it apart from 90% of other courses out there.”6. “It was a great session today. Super helpful and getting clearer. Amazing job everyone. Love this!!!!”7. “I have deployed and built a number of applications right from the first sessions of the course. Knowledge also helps me in self-study and research.”8/ “This class was worth every dollar, thank you guys!”9. “Thank you for an amazing ride! &lt;3”10. “I complained last time about the breakout rooms not being long enough and the lectures being too long. This time I think the ratio was GLORIOUS PERFECTION!”

Prototype agent apps and get them into Production. Ship fast and keep data safe.

Course syllabus

<ul><li>W1: June 24th, 26th</li><li>W2: July 1st, 3rd</li><li>W3: July 8th, 10th</li><li>W4: July 15th, 17th</li><li>W5: July 22nd, 24th</li><li>W6: July 29th, 31st</li><li>W7: August 5th, 7th</li><li>W8: August 12th, 14th</li><li>W9: August 19th, 21st</li><li>W10: August 26th, 28th</li></ul> * All sessions are recorded!

Tuesdays & Thursdays

Each class period, we will get hands-on with Python coding homework!

Weekly Programming Projects

Open to the public - Friends, family, coworkers, and bosses welcome! <a href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrSHiQgy4VjGG6wvPyIPoBnH2iqjtLY68" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">AIE5 Demo Day YouTube Playlist</a><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/events/7305318024528478208/comments/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">AIE5 Demo Day Event</a><a href="https://www.notion.so/AIE5-Demo-Day-Run-of-Show-1b5cd547af3d805e8bb7d049413ee129" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">AIE5 Demo Day Run of Show</a>

Demo Day!

Dr. Greg: Thursdays @ 10 AM PTThe Wiz 🪄: Fridays @ 3 PM PT

Instructor Office Hours

We typically cover 6-7 days per week with 1 or more office hours held by peer supporters!

Peer Supporter Office Hours

Course schedule

Software engineers and developers who want to build, deploy, operate, and improve LLM apps in production environments.

Data scientists and ML engineers/specialists who want to build, deploy, operate, and improve LLM apps in production environments.

Who is this course for

What you’ll get out of this course

A vibe coder won't take your job. An AI-assisted developer will.

🧑‍💻 Become an AI-Assisted Developer

Work with certified AI Engineers in dedicated small Journey groups to discuss and code throughout the cohort!

🧑‍🤝‍🧑 Peer-Supported Live Coding

You will present a unique project live to a cohort of your peers and the public!

🤩 Demo Day!

We're always at <a href="https://newsletter.aimakerspace.io/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">The LLM Edge</a>&nbsp; with the latest concepts, code, tools, techniques, and best practices!

🕴️ industry Leading Curriculum

Certified AI Engineers get direct access to job opportunities from our network

💼 Hiring Opportunities

Become an AI Engineer in the world's leading community for people who want to build, ship, and share production LLM applications 🏗️🚢🚀.

Cohort 7

"Dr. Greg" Loughnane

Chris "The Wiz 🪄" Alexiuk

Co-Founder & CTO @ AI Makerspace

AIE6

Cohort 8

🔥 HOW TO SPEAK SOFTWARE INTO EXISTENCE — AND OUTPACE TEAMS TEN TIMES YOUR SIZE THE FACTS YOU CAN’T IGNORE• In 2024 it took twelve developer-hours to ship an average feature. AI-augmented teams now do it in two.• Harvard Business Review (Feb 2025) calls AI-first velocity “the new MOAT.”• Venture money is chasing solo builders who move faster than whole departments. If you still rely on a backlog, a sprint board, and four espresso shots, you’re jogging while others ride e-bikes. THE PROBLEM WE SOLVE1. Endless “almost-works” prompts that collapse on edge-cases2. Code with no tests, no version control, and licence landmines3. A shiny new “must-have” tool on Twitter every Tuesday—and no honest way to judge the trade-offs Left unchecked, those gaps cost you launches, credibility, and sleep. THE REMEDYAI-Augmented Software Creation turns chaos into a repeatable system. Give us four Tuesdays and we’ll teach you to dictate an idea, harden it with safety nets, and push it live while your coffee is still hot. 🚀 WHO THIS IS FOR• Non-technical founders &amp; operators who need to ship without hiring a dev shop• Software engineers who want a 10 × workflow, not a replacement• Product &amp; tech leaders who must choose safe, cost-effective tools for their teams If you can write a clear Slack message, you meet the only prerequisite. ✅ WHAT MAKES THIS PROGRAM DIFFERENT • English-as-Code — instructors talk code into existence, dissecting every prompt and diff.• Safety Nets Baked-In — labs auto-generate integration tests, set up CI, and finish with an AI-powered debug drill.• Tool Agnostic, Never Tool Fragile — speed-date Cursor, Replit Agent, Gemini, LangChain, Copilot, and any newcomer that appears mid-cohort. Graduate with a decision matrix, not vendor lock-in.• Lean Pricing, Heavy Value — four live workshops, four guided labs, private Slack, lifetime recordings — all for $995 (see early-bird below). CURRICULUM AT A GLANCEWeek 1 — Foundational prompting and the anatomy of “vibe coding”Week 2 — Cursor vs Copilot vs Replit Agent; write the decision memoWeek 3 — Safety nets: licence checks, privacy guards, cost dashboardsWeek 4 — Capstone: speak a feature, ship it live, present the metrics LIVE EXPERT SESSIONS — STRAIGHT FROM THE SOURCE(Vendors locked; speaker names and demo titles announced in Slack as confirmed.)Cursor – TBAGoogle Gemini – TBAReplit – TBAWindsurf – TBAOpenAI – TBALovable – TBAMake.com – TBASupabase – TBAAlumni builders with 1,000 + active users – TBA Ask the architects, not just the marketers; copy their playbooks before your competitors do. BY THE END OF WEEK 4 YOU WILL• Draft a prompt → ship a working feature in under 60 minutes• Benchmark two AI IDEs and defend your tooling choice to any CTO• Launch a micro-app with CI, integration tests, error tracking, and cost reports• Spot licence, privacy, and prompt-security hazards before Legal taps your shoulder THE EXPERIENCE• Reserve your seat — cohorts capped at 40 for hands-on feedback.• Attend four 90-minute, demo-driven classes.• Complete four structured labs; publish two capstone projects.• Stay connected in private Slack for critiques, tool drops, lifetime community. ⚡ EARLY-BIRD OFFER — CODE VIBEBIRD 🕊️Enter VIBEBIRD at checkout before the discount or seats disappear (offer ends 20 June 2025 or when the cohort fills). Click “Enroll Now” and ride the AI wave on your terms.

Big Picture — Why this course

If your events are recurring and at the same time, it might be easiest to use a single line item to communicate your course schedule to students

Feel free to type out dates as your title as a way to communicate information about specific live sessions or other events.

May 7, 2022

Schedule items can also be used to convey commitments outside of specific time slots (like weekly projects or daily office hours).

Weekly projects

Professional Developers &amp; Data Engineers

Product Builders &amp; “Citizen Developers”

Founders, Tech Leads &amp; Engineering Managers

Speak a BACK/SPEC prompt, watch Cursor or Replit Agent scaffold a working app, and iterate live until it runs—no deep coding background required.

Prompt → Prototype in under an hour

Apply the 3‑Rule Framework—smart tool choice, auto‑generated tests in version control, and prompt‑level guard‑rails—so AI output stays review‑ready and future‑proof.

Built‑in Code Quality & Guard‑rails

Turn first‑draft blobs into readable, modular components with Cursor’s multi‑file chat, background agents, and diff review—all while the tests stay green.

Clean Refactors, Not Spaghetti

One‑click push to Replit or Vercel with secrets, CI, scheduled redeploys, error tracking, and token‑usage dashboards—your demo link “just works.”

Deploy & Monitor Like a Pro

Leave with a time‑and‑cost delta calculator and a 5‑slide deck template that prove exactly how AI‑augmented workflows cut budgets and accelerate delivery.

Quantify and Sell the ROI

Practical pair‑programming & no‑code strategies to deliver production‑ready apps

Akshika Wijesundara, PhD

AI/ML Engineering Lead

Cohort 1

Immerse yourself in the world of building with AI. Surround yourself with like-minded people, to learn and build TOGETHER. This challenge is a 4-week cohort-based program. Join us for live support, guided lessons, and help from experts during the challenge. You don’t need to learn to code. You need to learn to vibe with AI. With AI tools like Bolt, you can build real software by writing what you want in plain English. We’ll show you how and help you ship a real product by the end of this month-long challenge. Just in time to submit to the world’s largest Hackathon! ⚡ Runs alongside the Bolt $1M Hackathon This is our Special Edition cohort built to help you participate in — and finish — the WORLD's LARGEST HACKATHON of all time!&nbsp; WHY JOIN THIS COHORT? ✅ You want to join the Bolt Hackathon — but not aloneWhether you want to learn how to vibe code or want to increase your odds to win the Bolt Hackathon. Join a community of hackathon attendees, AI builders and fellow vibe coders. Meet your crew, stay accountable and get unstuck fast. If it’s your first hackathon or your twelfth you're welcome!&nbsp; ✅ Beginner-friendly, but not beginner-only.Whether you're AI-curious or already shipping side projects, this challenge meets you where you're at. We’ll guide non-techies step-by-step and include advanced paths for seasoned vibe coders who want to level up. ✅ You want to learn how to build with AI, not just talk about itNo tutorials or passive content. This bootcamp is all about building real products and apps with AI, one prompt at a time. ✅ You’ve never done a hackathon before — or always drop out halfwayWe designed this program to keep you motivated with live calls, weekly check-ins, daily Slack threads, peer office hours and a BUILD WEEK where the whole community ships together. ✅ You're tired of learning in isolationThis isn’t just a self-paced course. It’s a collaborative cohort, with shared goals and peer feedback built in. You’ll learn faster, have more fun and get real-time support from mentors and teammates. ✅ Not joining the hackathon? No worries.You’ll still build, ship and learn alongside a high-energy crew. This is your 4-week accountability container to finally launch that idea you've been sitting on. YOU'LL LEAVE WITH ☑️ A shipped, working product ☑️ A Bolt Hackathon submission ☑️ A better understanding of frontend, backend and database concepts ☑️ A habit of daily momentum ☑️ A bunch of new online friends ☑️ A feeling of damn, I built that 🚨 START DATE: MAY 30THWe kick off with the official Bolt Hackathon Launch. Cohort Slack opens then. 📅 BONUS WEEKWe've add an extra week to this bootcamp! Jun 2nd - 8th is Warm Up Week. Normally our bootcamps are 2.5 weeks, but this one is a whole month 🔥 👉 ONE-TIME OPPORTUNITY: Runs alongside the world's largest hackathon. A one-time opportunity! We have limited spots, so grab your chance! ⭐️ PROVEN CONCEPT:From the team of the No-Code x AI Bootcamp and Prototyping with AI Bootcamp on Maven, with over 350 reviews 🔥

Bolt Hackathon Special Edition Bootcamp

Build your product with plain English, no coding required.

No coding required

Whether you are a beginner or a builder, join us for the community and accountability to learn and build together.

Good vibes

You'll learn the most from building, so we make sure you'll get the reps in to get ready for your end project

Daily bite-sized lessons

Our experts will show you the way and help you get unstuck

Live building clinics

Together you get further. Everyone is here to help each other, to increase the odds that one of us will win the worlds largest hackathon.

Power of community

We're here to help you get your project over the line. Harold will be your accountability partner during the program. Let's make it happen 💪

Accountability partner

Challenge schedule

AI-curious beginners, non technical professionals and anyone sitting on an idea you want to build

Product and UX people who want to build and not rely on their dev team anymore, and Bolt users who want extra accountability

Creators, indie hackers and startup dreamers who thrive on community and accountability and vibe coders who want to learn the full stack

What you’ll get out of this challenge

You'll build several mini apps to warm up, then create and ship your own project into the Bolt Hackathon. You’ll also learn how to pitch it.

✨ Build your own full app and ship it

Get expert support, guided lessons, and a peer community to help you stay on track, polish your pitch and actually submit your app.

🏆 Boost your chances of winning the $1M Bolt Hackathon

We start by teaching you how to think like a vibe coder. You'll learn frameworks, mental models and how to collaborate with AI instead of trying to control it.

🧠 Learn the mindset and workflow of vibe coding

From Bolt to Supabase to Cursor, you'll learn to build full-stack apps using AI tools.&nbsp; Including auth, databases, APIs, Stripe and mobile apps.

⚙️ Master the tools to build and deploy an app for the Bolt hackathon

Daily Slack check-ins, Sunday reflection threads, office hours, polls and peer matching. We’re serious about community accountability.

💬 Real-time community and peer support

We’re replacing our traditional “build weekend” with a BUILD WEEK. More space, more support, more time to ship. You’ll also get a pitch workshop to prepare for Demo Day.

💥 A full BUILD WEEK and pitch prep

Find your community, and join together in the WORLDS LARGEST HACKATHON. Ship your product, and maybe even win a share of the $1M prize pool!

Max Haining

Founder of the 100 School

Ashton Wesley

Founder of Create With

Cohort 2

No-code tools allow virtually anyone to build apps like a team of 5 devs. While you don't have to know any programming languages, there are a lot of potential false steps you can make when you are first learning to use these tools. In this course, we will introduce you to "vibe coding" the right way. You will learn how to plan so that you can start out right. You will learn how to optimize prompts so that you can build something sound. You will learn how to structure your backend data and even understand SQL enough to make sure Lovable is setting things up right. You will even learn how to integrate ChatGPT and other APIs to take your apps to the next level.

Learn how to build your application using AI no-code tools in just 4 weeks.

Every Monday, you will be presented with a lesson on a new topic: Lovable prompting, Supabase databases, ChatGPT and backend coding, and more. If you can't make these, they will be recorded and you will be able to watch at your leisure.

Monday Concept Lessons

You will have an opportunity to bring questions and issues so that you can troubleshoot and move past them swiftly and with help.

Wednesday Optional Troubleshooting & Office Hours

Every week you will submit your work so far, culminating in your final application: <ul><li>Your Lovable UI</li><li>Your UI with data</li><li>Your UI with API or authentication</li><li>Your final app</li></ul>

Non-technical founders who have a great idea but need to build an app without having to hire a developer.

UX designers who want to be able to take their design ideas directly to a live application to validate or just ship.

Product managers who want to take their ideas to an app to test a problem space, or to not be beholden to their dev team's fat backlog,

Building a decent app with no-code tools is a deceptively hard thing to do. We will teach you how to build a useful app that doesn't blow up as it scales and gets more complicated.

Learn how to build great apps using Lovable

Give students an idea of how they can expect to grow throughout your course. Include specificity and precise results so students can benchmark exactly what they’ll learn.

Avoid common mistakes non-technical people making when using no-code tools.

Lovable has easy integration with Supabase, a real-time relational database. It is critical to learn some basics about relational database to ensure you build something with data that is structured correctly to scale, be secure, and be useful.

Learn how to set up datastructures that can provide your back end.

While Lovable and Supabase combined can build powerful applications, integration third-party APIs - including AI ones like ChatGPT - can really make your app next level and provide the ability to offer AI assistance and more.

Learn how to integrate ChatGPT and other APIs to make powerful real-world apps.

You will come out of this 4 week course with your own app that you've developed. Go live or tweak it some more and launch - it's up to you.

Build your first app with literally no coding or technical background needed.

No-code application development using AI tools enables anyone to create apps - but it's important to get it right. Drew will show you how.

Lightning Lessons

Vibe Coding and AI-Assisted Development with Cursor