In person · Ages 13–18 · Eight weeks
An eight-week after-school studio. Your teen picks the project, a game, an app, a film, an album, a business, anything they can imagine, and uses the latest AI tools to make a real, working version of it. Two hours a week, small group, in person.
Why now
What changed
A working game, a finished song, a short film, an app that runs on a phone. Each of those used to need a team or years of practice. With today's tools, one motivated teenager can get to a working version.
What hasn't
Whether it's allowed, when it's cheating. Learning to make something real with it isn't on the timetable, and it's the part that will matter for the rest of their lives.
What that means
The tools write the code and draw the pictures. The person still has to have the idea, direct the tools well, and tell a good result from a bad one. Those are skills, and they're learned by making things.
What they make
It can be anything they can imagine. Nobody is handed a project. These are the kinds of things eight weeks can hold, to make it concrete.
Their world, their rules, their characters. Multiplayer if they want it.
Stats for their team, a tool for a class, a tracker for a collection. Built for real users: themselves.
Story, characters, voices, score. Written, generated, edited and finished.
Original songs in their style, with a visual identity and a music video for the single.
A brand, a store or a service, with a real page and everything needed to take a first order.
Written and illustrated by them, laid out and ready for the press.
A T-shirt line, a 3D-printed figure of their character, a poster series. Files ready to make.
The ideas they already have and haven't had a way to build. That's the point.
What they have at the end
Finished things. Real projects they made, that work, that they can show anyone.
A way of working. Idea to version one to better version, with tools that change every few months. It transfers to the next thing they want to make.
People who build. A small group that has seen each other's work every week and knows how to help.
What they learn
The same skills adults are learning at work right now, practiced on a game or a song instead of a spreadsheet.
Say what it is, who it's for, what good looks like, and what to change. A vague ask gets a vague result. They learn to ask like someone who has done this before.
Deciding what “good” means for this project before the tool answers, then testing against it. Knowing when the result is wrong is most of the skill.
Start with an idea, make a rough version, get feedback, make a better one. Nothing is finished on the first try, and a rough first version is how it's supposed to go.
An image tool feeds a video tool feeds an editor. The goal is a process they can reuse on the next project instead of starting from scratch.
What to make and what not to, crediting other people's work, keeping private information out, and never using a real person's face or voice without asking.
Getting a thing out the door and showing it to someone. It's the easiest part to skip, and the part that makes the rest worth it.
How it works
What changes is what they're exploring and what they're building.
Tools
These tools change every few months. The studio uses whatever is best that term, and learning to switch is part of the point.
The latest models and tools, for everything: writing, planning, code, images, video, music, voices, 3D models, and the workflows that chain them together. There are a lot of tools for a lot of different jobs, and the good ones change every month. The studio uses whatever is best that term, from the ones available to minors.
An AI usage allowance is built into the price, sized for a full project every week, on accounts Nick sets up and can see. Students who already have their own computer and their own subscriptions are welcome to use them.
Tell Nick. The studio keeps a reserve for ambitious projects, and that covers most cases. For something unusually heavy, like a long film with many generated scenes, a family can add more at cost. Nobody's project stalls over a quota.
Their own laptop if they have one; a school Chromebook works, since the tools run in a browser. If they don't have one, the studio has laptops to borrow. Their own computer with their own subscriptions is fine too.
Who runs it
Nick Dahlhoff taught elementary school in Beijing for about three and a half years, including curriculum work and leading the first-grade team. He now builds software and creative tools with AI every day, and the studio is that same work with teens doing the making.
Before that he built All Language Resources, a language-learning site, and sold it in 2021.
Dates and price
$499 for one student, all eight sessions, AI tools and usage included.
Get the details by email: the address once it's set, what a session looks like, and a note when seats get low.
Questions
No. AI writes the first draft of most code, and Nick helps with the rest. Students who already make things bring a project and keep going from where they are.
AI drafts code, images and sound quickly. Your teen chooses what to make, tests what comes back, and fixes it. That's most of the work, and it's the part worth learning.
Good. Nick helps find a first version that can work within a session or two, and the right tool for it. A big idea gets a small first version to start from, then grows.
Also fine. The weekly explorations exist to spark them, and there are prepared starting points to try until something sticks.
An allowance sized for a full project every week is built into the price. If a project needs more, the studio's reserve covers most cases; for something unusually heavy a family can add more at cost.
Students will use tool accounts that Nick sets up and can see, rather than their own. The tools' own content filters are on, private information stays out of them, and Nick is in the room with at most ten students. Anything a tool produces that isn't appropriate gets pulled and talked about.
Projects live in accounts Nick controls. The files go home with the student at the end of the term, or any time they ask, and the studio copies are deleted on request. No student's face, voice or full name goes into an AI tool.
A rented classroom space in Grandville or Jenison. The room is being finalized now, and enrolled families get the address by email as soon as it's confirmed. If it doesn't work for your family once you see it, the full refund before the first session covers you.
Their own if they have one; a school Chromebook works, since the tools run in a browser. If not, the studio has laptops to borrow. Their own computer with their own AI subscriptions is fine too.
No. There's a project they chose, and a group to show it to every week. If they want to keep working on it between sessions, they can.
A group runs with at least six students. If a group is cancelled, everyone in it gets a full refund without asking.
Full refund any time before the first session. Full refund after session one if you tell us within three days that it isn't right for your teen. After that, the seat can transfer to another student in the same group at no charge. The full terms and refund policy are here.