University of Florida launches NSF-funded AI-PLAY to teach AI concepts through movement

University of Florida researchers have launched AI-PLAY, an NSF-funded project that teaches fourth- and fifth-graders in Alachua County public schools foundational AI concepts through after-school programs. Students use low-cost sensors to generate thousands of data points by running, walking, jumping and squatting, then discuss how computers perceive through sensors, how AI learns from data and how AI affects society. A kickoff meeting is set for late September 2026, and the after-school program begins in January 2027.

The project offers a concrete design for extending AI education to younger learners: using data generated by students' own bodies to explain concepts such as training-data bias and self-supervised learning, connecting abstract content to personal experience. Its impact depends on how the after-school program is actually implemented in Alachua County schools and whether the hardware and software combination can be replicated elsewhere. The program has not yet started, no learning-outcome data exists, and the team only says it hopes students will become AI-informed citizens. Fourth- and fifth-graders can encounter sensors, training-data bias and self-supervised learning through movement data in the after-school program. The project brings sensors and testing methods used by collegiate athletics into an elementary after-school curriculum, offering a reference course and hardware combination for early AI education.