Babson College Pre-Collegiate Summer Program · July 2027

Build with AI Agents: From Idea to Live App

A one-week morning course in which students work with AI agents to build and publish a web app for a real user. No coding experience is needed.

The registration link will appear here.

What students do

AI agents can now write, test, and fix code from plain-language instructions. The hard part of building software is shifting from syntax to judgment: deciding what to build, describing it clearly, and telling whether what the AI produced actually works. Many people call this “vibe coding.” This course goes a step further: students learn to read what the AI built, find what is wrong, and decide what to keep.

In this one-week, hands-on course, students start from a real person’s need, turn it into a product plan, and work with AI coding agents to build and publish a web app. Each morning combines short concept sessions with extended build time. On Friday, every student presents a live product at Demo Day, where classmates vote on awards.

Why this course appeals to rising juniors and seniors

Knowing how to direct AI to build things is becoming a basic skill across business, consulting, marketing, and entrepreneurship. Students leave with a deployed app they designed for a real user, something concrete to show in college applications and portfolios, along with a way of working they can apply to their own ideas long after the course ends.

What students will be able to do

Explain how AI agents work: how they plan, act, check their results, and why their output depends on the instructions and context they are given
Interview a user and turn their needs into a product plan an AI agent can build from
Build and publish a working web application without prior coding experience
Walk through how the key parts of their app work
Test AI-generated work, find problems, and fix them by working with the AI
Judge when AI-assisted building is the right approach for a business problem

The week

Day 1
How AI agents work and build software; setup; publish a first page to the web
Day 2
From user interview to product plan; directing the agent on layout and style
Day 3
Adding interactivity and user input; reading the code the AI wrote
Day 4
Building your own product; testing and debugging with AI
Day 5
Final polish; Demo Day and peer awards

Practical details

Dates: To be confirmed
Times: To be confirmed
Laptop: To be confirmed
Accounts: Free accounts for AI and hosting tools (setup guided on Day 1)