In this post, I want to share a recent worksheet I wrote for Machine Learning for Kids. It is a hands-on project to give students an insight into an aspect of prompt engineering with language models.
Students create a Scratch project with four sprites.
They start things off by writing an English sentence which goes to their first sprite.
The first sprite waits to be given an English sentence, and uses a language model to translate it into French.
The second sprite waits to be given a French sentence, and uses a language model to translate it into German.
The third sprite waits to be given a German sentence, and uses a language model to translate it into Chinese.
The fourth sprite waits to be given a Chinese sentence, and uses a language model to translate it into English.
This is then received by the first sprite, and the process continues again.
screen recording of the Scratch project on YouTube
Because the translations aren’t 100% perfect, like the famous children’s game, the text passed between the sprites gets further and further from the student’s starting sentence.
I’ve been kicking around this idea for a few months, but it didn’t work well with the groups that I tried the early project incarnations with. I think it’s in a better state now, so I’ve added the worksheet to the site.
The project has given me a chance to introduce a range of different ideas…
