Build Night

Pick one AI assistant and sign up for its free tier. A few you may have heard of, in alphabetical order: ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot, Gemini. There are others, and new ones show up often. Any assistant you can type to will work for this season.

If you already have one, use it. If you don't, pick any one and stay with it for all six nights, so you're learning the nights and not a new tool every week. Sign up with your own email.

House rule · Your account, your roomMost AI assistants are built for ages 13 and up, and some for 18 and up. Use your own account and stay next to your kid.

Open the settings and look for anything about chat history, memory, or using your conversations to train or improve the AI. Where there's an off switch, turn it off. These settings move around and go by different names, so if you can't find one in a few minutes, move on and look again later.

One rule matters more than any setting:

House ruleNever give the AI a full name, school, address, or a photo of a face.

Three short tries, in order.

1. Ask something you already know. A question about your town, your work, or a book you've read. Check the answer. If it gets something wrong, you just did Night 1 before your kid did.

2. Ask for a rewrite with one note.

   Write a three-sentence thank-you note to a neighbor who lent us a ladder.

   Then give it one specific note, like "Make it funnier and cut the last sentence." Watch what changes. That's the skill Night 2 is built on.

3. See whether your tool can build a page.

   Build a tiny web page with one big button. When I click it, it says hello. Show it to me here.

   If you get a button you can click, you're set for Night 4. If it can't, you'll know now instead of halfway through a night, and Night 4's card has a paper-quiz fallback for that case.

Your job is to ask, not fix. When something breaks on a Build Night, and something will, your first move is a question. Read these three out loud once so they're ready:

You'll want to reach for the keyboard. The rule is the same every night: "Stay off the keyboard, unless you're typing their exact words."

Print Night 1 and have a pencil and crayons ready.

Write down five questions you know the answer to, but the AI might not. Some ideas:

• What's my dog's name?
• How many letters are in my first name? (Say the name out loud. Don't type it.)
• What did I eat for breakfast?
• How many r's are in "strawberry"?

Ask the AI each question. Mark each answer in your notebook: Right, Wrong, or Made it up.

When it's wrong, tell it. Does it fix the mistake? Does it argue? Does it make up a new wrong answer?

At dinner or bedtime, tell someone the best mistake you caught.

Pick a hero, a place, and a problem. Weird is good. A goalie who is secretly a penguin counts.

Ask for a short story:

Read it. Then give one note at a time. For example:

• "Make the dragon scared of socks."
• "It's too long. Cut it in half."
• "The ending is boring. Make it a surprise."

Read version 1 and your last version out loud. Which one is better? Which note made the biggest difference?

Draw the cover. Put the title on it, plus "Directed by" and your first name.

Decide where you'll play (table, backyard, or living room), what you have, and how many players you'll have.

Pick one. Rewrite the rules until they fit on one index card.

Play two rounds for real. Write down what went wrong: too easy, too long, confusing, or the same person always wins.

Change one rule and play again. Give your game a name.

Pick a topic, like sharks, soccer, or space. Decide how many questions there are and what happens when someone gets one right.

Play it. Then ask for one change at a time: bigger buttons, a different color, a harder question.

Check every answer in the quiz. Remember Night 1. Then have someone else play it while you watch without talking. Where did they get stuck?

Keep your best version. Take a screenshot for your ship log.

Interview your three people. Write down exactly what they say, not what you wish they said.

Show the AI your notes and ask for five ways to fix the problem you heard most. Circle the one you could actually make.

Say your idea in one sentence: "I help ___ with ___ by ___."

Decide what version 1 is: the simplest thing that still fixes the problem.

Make it. Use the AI for the extras:

Practice the pitch out loud twice.

Pitch it to five people. Ask: "Would you use this? Would you pay $1 for it?" Mark each answer yes, maybe, or no, and write down why.

Decide whether to keep going, change it, or stop. All three are good answers. If you earned money, decide how much to spend, save, and give.