The Spark Track
No experience needed. All faculties, all years.
Standalone · 6 sessions
Spark is the open-access half of AI Ignite, for students from any faculty who want to use AI for real work without a technical background. No code required, no prerequisites.
Six hands-on sessions run through the year. Before each one, members vote on what to build. The group picks the project, then spends the session building it together with the same tools professionals use.
The poll
We ask before we teach
One week before each session, a poll goes out on Instagram, WhatsApp and Discord with three or four project ideas. Members vote. The winning idea becomes the session project.
Everyone who turns up leaves with a working version of it. Nothing here is demo-only.
Who it is for
- Open to all York students, any faculty, any year, any major.
- Absolute beginner through intermediate. If you have used ChatGPT once, or have only been curious about it, you belong here.
- Drop-in friendly. Every session stands alone, so come to as many as you want.
A real AI-powered tool or workflow, built by you during the session. Something you can use immediately.
Ninety minutes
20 min
Topic presentation
What the tool is, why it matters, and how professionals use it.
60 min
Group build
We build the project the room voted for, step by step, together.
10 min
Share and wrap
Members show what they built and get a preview of the next session.
Six sessions
01
Prompt engineering for everyone
You build: A working prompt-based tool: an email drafter, a study guide generator, a research summariser, or a cover letter helper.
02
AI automation workflows
You build: A live automation that runs in the background: a job tracker, a weekly digest emailer, a social scheduler, or a deadline reminder bot.
03
Vibe coding: build a web app with AI
You build: A deployed web app with a URL, built from nothing in 90 minutes.
04
AI for data and research
You build: A full analysis with charts, findings and a shareable summary.
05
AI agents: autonomous task completion
You build: A working agent that finishes a multi-step task without being nudged through it.
06
AI for your career
You build: A career tool: a resume optimiser, a LinkedIn analyser, an interview prep bot, or a networking message generator.
What you will use
- Claude.ai
- ChatGPT
- n8n
- Lovable.dev
- Cursor
- Bolt.new
- Flourish
- Google Sheets
- Google Docs
After all six
- Six working AI tools, one from each session, shaped by what your cohort voted for.
- Practical fluency: prompting, automating, building apps, analysing data, running agents.
- A network across Business, Science, Arts, Engineering and Law.
- The mindset that comes from having shipped things, broken things, and learned what AI cannot do.
- A way in to Forge when you want to go deeper.