Posts Tagged ‘machine learning’

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Explaining ML with neural networks

Tuesday, October 27th, 2020

I’m working on interactive visualisations for Machine Learning for Kids that explain more of the machine learning models that children create.

Machine Learning for Kids is a platform to teach children about artificial intelligence and machine learning, by giving them a simple tool for training machine learning models, and using that to make projects using tools like Scratch. I’ve described before how I’ve seen children learn a lot about machine learning principles by being able to play and experiment with it.

But I still want the site to do more to explain how the tech actually works. I’ve done this before for the decision tree classifiers that students train for numbers projects but with this new feature I’m trying to explain neural networks.

I’ve recorded a video run-through of what I’ve done so far. The screenshots below link to different sections of the video.

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Using TensorFlow to make predictions from Kafka events

Sunday, September 6th, 2020

This post is a simple example of how to use a machine learning model to make predictions on a stream of events on a Kafka topic.

It’s more a quick hack than a polished project, with most of this code hacked together from samples and starter code in a single evening. But it’s a fun demo, and could be a jumping-off point for starting a more serious project.

For the purposes of a demo, I wanted to make a simple example of how to implement this pattern, using:

  • sensors that are easily and readily available, and
  • predictions that are easy to understand (and easy to generate labelled training data for)

With that goal in mind, I went with:

  • for the sensors providing the source of events, I used the accelerometer and gyroscope on my iPhone
  • to set up the Kafka broker, I used the Strimzi Kafka Operator
  • for the machine learning model, I used TensorFlow to make a simple bidirectional LSTM
  • the predictions I’m making are a description of what I’m doing with the phone (e.g. is it in my hand, is it in my pocket, etc.)

I’ve got my phone publishing a live stream of raw sensor readings, and passing that stream through an ML model to give me a live stream of events like “phone has been put on a table”, “phone has been picked up and is in my hand”, or “phone has been put in a pocket while I’m sat down”, etc.

Here is it in action. It’s a bit fiddly to demo, and a little awkward to film putting something in your pocket without filming your lap, so bear with me!

The source code is all at
github.com/dalelane/machine-learning-kafka-events.

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Using repl.it with Machine Learning for Kids

Sunday, May 10th, 2020

Students can work on machine learning projects in Python entirely in the browser, without any need for setup, installs, or registration.

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Using TensorFlow with IBM Event Streams
(Kafka + Machine Learning = Awesome)

Thursday, October 31st, 2019

In this post, I want to explain how to get started creating machine learning applications using the data you have on Kafka topics.

I’ve written a sample app, with examples of how you can use Kafka topics as:

  • a source of training data for creating machine learning models
  • a source of test data for evaluating machine learning models
  • an ongoing stream of events to make predictions about using machine learning models

I’ll use this post to explain how it works, and how you can use it as the basis of writing your first ML pipeline using the data on your own Kafka topics.

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Explaining machine learning with decision trees

Sunday, August 18th, 2019

Machine Learning for Kids now includes interactive visualisations that explain how some of the machine learning models that children create work.

The tool lets children learn about artificial intelligence by training machine learning models, and using that to make projects using tools like Scratch. I’ve described how I’ve seen children learn a lot about machine learning principles by being able to play and experiment with it. But I still want the site to do more to explain how the tech actually works, and this new feature is an attempt to do that.

(more…)

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Curated sample training datasets for Machine Learning for Kids

Wednesday, June 26th, 2019

Machine Learning for Kids now includes support for a curated collection of training data sets, to enable children to create different types of machine learning projects.


Click to enlarge

The tool lets children make things using machine learning. The principle I’ve worked to is that children train their own machine learning models, as doing this is a great way to teach them about how this tech works.

Preparing their own training data is a useful exercise, but it is time-consuming. Project worksheets I’ve written so far have all been written with the assumption that the student will prepare the training data within a single lesson. This has been a limiting factor on the kinds of ML projects I’ve been able to include.

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How to increase your social impact

Sunday, June 16th, 2019

This is a talk I gave at an event about how we are able to make a social impact through volunteering and community projects.

I’ve written before about how I made Machine Learning for Kids. But this talk had a different focus.

For this presentation, I looked to see if there are any general lessons that could be learned from my experience, to let me offer a little advice for people working in large companies like IBM about how to increase the impact of their volunteering efforts.

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Noughts and Crosses AI demo for Science Fair events

Monday, May 28th, 2018

A hands-on demo for use at a small STEM event – letting kids train a simple AI system by playing a few games of noughts and crosses.

I prepared an activity for a STEM event in London this week. The idea was to make something for a Science Fair sort of event – where children will be walking past a stand, and might stop for a minute or two to try out an activity.

The objective was to come up with a hands-on demo that would enable a volunteer to talk to the children about machine learning.

As I’ve written it, I thought I’d share it here in case anyone else might find it useful for another event.

Noughts and Crosses

It’s based on the noughts-and-crosses activity that I’ve used before. Kids play noughts-and-crosses against a simple artificial intelligence system. The computer uses a machine learning model to decide where to make it’s moves. And that machine learning model will be trained throughout the event using the moves from every game so far.

Download the instructions here

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