Week 4: Track exposure#

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Goal#

A hands-on taste of both tracks, enough evidence to choose one for Weeks 5-7, rather than choosing based on hype from before Week 1.

Days#

• Days 1-2: AI track taste. Call a hosted model's API from code, understand tokens/prompts/cost, build a tiny chatbot with memory. See ai/.
• Days 3-4: Blockchain track taste. What a private key and a transaction actually are, testnet only, write and deploy a first, trivial Solidity contract, and call it from a Python script using web3.py. See blockchain/.
• Day 5: choose the primary track for Weeks 5-7.

Deliverable#

A tiny chatbot (AI) and a trivial deployed contract called from Python (blockchain), both built, before choosing.

AI track: ai/#

Do this in order. Only step 4 is optional.

1. ai/notes/ 01 through 04, in order.
2. ai/exercises/00-guided-build-the-chatbot.md, a line-by-line guided build, before you read the finished version's explanation.
3. ai/project/README.md, the full walkthrough of the same, now-complete chatbot.py.
4. Optional, standalone, any order, any number of them: small tweaks directly on chatbot.py. 01 personality/cost/memory-cap · 02 a stats command · 03 a clear command · 04 cap message length · 05 log to a file on exit · 06 classify a message (its own starter script) · 07 retry with backoff · 08 switch models mid-conversation.

Blockchain track: blockchain/#

Do this in order. Only step 4 is optional.

1. blockchain/notes/ 01 through 04, in order.
2. blockchain/exercises/00-guided-write-greeter.md, a line-by-line guided build, compiling after every step, before you read the finished version's explanation.
3. blockchain/project/README.md, the full walkthrough: generate a testnet keypair, deploy the now-familiar Greeter.sol with Ape, call it from Python with web3.py.
4. Optional, standalone, any order, any number of them: extensions to Greeter.sol, each its own full edit/recompile/redeploy/call cycle. 01 a change counter and reset · 02 an owner-only emergency reset · 03 a second event · 04 a length cap and revert handling · 05 tracking the longest greeting.

Status#