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docs/source/ai/innovation_corner/innovation-corner.rst

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+AI Innovation Corner
+====================
+
+These articles are part of the *FIRST* Tech Challenge AI Innovation Corner.
+This is a place where we'll post custom and curated articles relevant to
+*FIRST* Tech Challenge as it relates to AI and its impact on our daily
+lives and the world around us. We would like to thank Google for their 
+generous contributions to *FIRST* Tech Challenge to increase access to 
+our program in underserved communities and for providing
+sponsorship and occasional technical direction for this content.
+
+Articles are ordered on this page chronologically, with the newest content
+at the top of the page expanded. Just click to expand any other articles
+you'd like to see.
+
+.. dropdown:: Week of 09/30/2024 "AI Competition Manual Assistant"
+   :open:
+
+   .. _competition_manual_assistant:
+
+   **AI Competition Manual Assistant**
+
+   In our first article, the Google AI Studio was introduced as a
+   tool to interact with Google’s Gemini AI. Gemini is one of several flagship
+   Large Language Models (LLM’s) that have been meticulously trained on massive
+   amounts of text data to learn the patterns and relationships between units
+   of language - these models have actually learned how to recognize text-based
+   language, read and understand data, and synthesize what it learned to
+   predict and interpret future data. This is the exact process humans make in
+   learning and understanding the world around us! In Google AI Studio, users
+   can interact with the Gemini AI through “prompts” to perform tasks for them.
+   Prompts are instructions or queries given to an AI in order to generate a
+   response - the quality of the response is often directly related to the
+   quality of the prompt. Through these prompts, Gemini can provide responses
+   based on the massive dataset that it has been pre-trained with, or users can
+   also provide additional documents, text, or media that the AI has never seen
+   before. These multimodal prompts, or prompts that include multiple types of
+   content, can be very beneficial in interacting with an AI using content that
+   is specific to a niche area like *FIRST* Tech Challenge. Can you think of ways
+   to put this ability to good use in *FIRST* Tech Challenge?
+
+   In *FIRST* Tech Challenge, one of the first tasks teams have to do is to read
+   and understand the *FIRST* Tech Challenge Competition Manual. This can be a
+   very painstaking task, and even a skilled reader can miss subtle nuances
+   provided by the manual. However, an AI can break down and analyze the manual
+   in a matter of seconds, usually preserving the nuance provided in the
+   document. Users can then interact with the AI that has analyzed the
+   Competition Manual, and prompt the AI to provide insights - these questions
+   might involve locating specific information likely found in the Competition
+   Manual, summarize important rules or processes, or even involve asking the
+   AI to make a best guess. Through a process known as “role playing” the user
+   can prompt the AI to take on a role or persona and direct the AI to follow
+   specific rules as it interacts with the user in subsequent prompts. The
+   remainder of this article is a tutorial on how to set up a “role playing”
+   session with the Google Gemini AI through Google AI Studio to analyze and
+   answer questions based on the *FIRST* Tech Challenge 2024-2025 Competition
+   Manual for the INTO THE DEEP presented by RTX season. While some of the
+   nuanced elements (like AI prompting) will be shallowly covered in this
+   article, it is something we’ll cover a lot more in future articles.
+
+   Creating an AI expert using Google AI Studio is fairly straightforward - the
+   hard part is creating the proper prompt, and there we’ve got you covered.
+
+   **Step 1** - First, log into `Google AI Studio
+   <https://ai.google.dev/aistudio>`_. You can do this by clicking the “Sign in
+   to Google AI Studio” button on the front page of the Google AI Studio home
+   page. You will need a Google account in order to do this - getting one is
+   left as an exercise to the reader. The Google account is used to store your
+   Google AI Studio prompt sessions and any content you upload to the model,
+   and to track usage of the Gemini APIs.
+
+   **Step 2** - Let’s download the *FIRST* Tech Challenge Competition Manual to your
+   local computer. You can always find the latest Competition Manual PDF at the
+   following link: 
+
+   * https://ftc-resources.firstinspires.org/file/ftc/game/manual
+
+   **Step 3** - In the left navigation pane towards the top of the pane, there
+   is a circle with a plus inside it with the text “Create new prompt” next to
+   it.  Clicking on this button will start a new prompt - though if you’re
+   using Google AI Studio for the first time it’s likely a new prompt is
+   already open. 
+
+   Now that we have a new prompt, you can give the prompt a name.  This will
+   allow the prompt to be saved in your "My Library" so you can come back and
+   interact with the prompt later without having to recreate the prompt session
+   every time. 
+
+   In the bottom center of the workspace is a text field where you can enter in
+   your prompt (it has a default prompt of “Type something”). BEFORE we enter
+   our prompt, we want to add our Competition Manual PDF document. To add the
+   document, click the “Plus” icon to the right of the prompt area.  This will
+   give you several options, choose “Upload to Drive”. You can either click the
+   “Browse” button to browse for the PDF of the Competition Manual that you
+   downloaded, or you can drag the file into the window. This adds the
+   Competition Manual to your prompt, it may take a minute or two to upload the
+   PDF so please be patient.
+
+   .. figure:: images/new_prompt.*
+      :align: center
+      :alt: Google AI Studio Screen
+      :width: 75%
+
+      Creating a prompt in Google AI Studio
+
+   **Step 4** - Now that we have our document uploaded, we now want to enter our
+   prompt. This prompt directs the AI in how to manage its responses, what
+   information to use when developing a response, and sets up the role that the
+   AI will attempt to play. Enter the following prompt and press the “Run”
+   button:
+
+   * *You are a helpful AI assistant providing answers to questions about the
+     provided PDF. Do not use any prior knowledge; you have everything you need
+     to answer questions in the one PDF provided. Cite all references.*
+
+   Once the AI processes the initial prompt, we can then ask questions that the
+   AI will use the Competition Manual to answer. Depending on the question, it
+   may take the AI between several seconds up to a couple minutes to answer -
+   be patient! Here are several questions you can ask (remember to press the
+   “Run” button after asking each question):
+
+   Example sample questions:
+
+   * How many SAMPLES is a ROBOT allowed to CONTROL at a time?
+   * What are the different ways to score points?
+   * How large can a ROBOT be in its STARTING CONFIGURATION?
+   * Which awards are best for advancement?
+   * How do I write a strong engineering portfolio?
+
+   Some prompts that require a lot of complex understanding or strategy can yield
+   results that are not correct, especially if there is information “understood
+   but not supplied.” For example, the following prompts provide some correct and
+   some incorrect information:
+
+   Examples of difficult questions:
+
+   * What is the maximum score for an alliance?
+   * Can ROBOTS pick up an opposing ALLIANCE'S SAMPLES?
+   * How many matches does a team play at an event?
+
+   This example was specific to FIRST Tech Challenge, but this process can be
+   used for virtually any documents or media. Using AI as an analysis assistant
+   can help you summarize news articles, find specific instructions in user
+   manuals, review books, and more! Remember that the quality of the responses
+   the AI provides is directly related to the quality of the prompt provided -
+   even so, the AI isn’t always going to be able to provide correct answers so
+   it’s up to you to verify the correctness of all answers provided by an AI.
+
+.. dropdown:: Week of 09/09/2024 "AI Innovation Corner - Google AI Studio"
+
+   .. _googleAIstudio:
+
+   **AI Innovation Corner - Google AI Studio**
+
+   This first article launched as part of the *Tech Tips of the Week*, but is
+   the official first article for the AI Innovation Corner.
+
+   This week’s Tech Tip of the Week launches a new initiative in *FIRST* Tech
+   Challenge, an AI Innovation Corner. Generative AI has taken the world by
+   storm, becoming commonplace now in everything from personal assistants,
+   search engines, recipe curation, music innovation, and vehicle maintenance!
+   Machine Learning AI has been a part of *FIRST* Tech Challenge in some way for
+   the past six years, and we’re now transitioning to help teams learn how to
+   use and incorporate Generative AI in their *FIRST* Tech Challenge experience
+   (while we’re learning ourselves!).
+
+   The first step (or *FIRST* step?) to getting the most out of AI is choosing a
+   model. What do I mean by model? Every AI is a neural network that has been
+   trained with specific knowledge with the ability to do specific things based
+   on that knowledge. Each version of this neural network is stored in a “model”.
+   Each different company has different models available for different purposes,
+   though most models are variations on their flagship model (Gemini from Google,
+   ChatGPT 4-o from OpenAI, Claude from Anthropic, and so on). Each company has
+   different web-based and API interfaces for interacting with their models, and
+   everyone has their favorite. In *FIRST* Tech Challenge, the standard tool we use
+   is `Google AI Studio <https://ai.google.dev/aistudio>`__ to interact with Gemini.
+
+   Google AI Studio is free to use, but requires a Google account to access -
+   virtually all models require a login or API token of some kind to use. Google
+   AI Studio is our favorite for its list of examples (Prompt Gallery) and its
+   easy to use interface to save prompt sessions and resume them later. With
+   Google AI Studio, you also can select the specific model you want to use, and
+   when available you can choose to use preview versions of up and coming models.
+
+

docs/source/index.rst

@@ -43,6 +43,7 @@ to see why.
 
    game_specific_resources/blog/blog
    tech_tips/tech-tips
+   ai/innovation_corner/innovation-corner
    manuals/game_manuals/game_manuals
    Game Q&A Forum <game_specific_resources/ftcqa/ftcqa>
    game_specific_resources/playing_field_resources/playing_field_resources