Purdue Students Elevate AI through EdTech Community

The Claude Builder Club of Purdue becomes a successful EdTech community that enables learners in hands-on AI learning.

The Claude Builder Club of Purdue University has formed quickly to become a thriving community of users of generative AI outside the academic framework; more than 100 students have signed up to explore it. The collaboration with the Claude Builder and Student Ambassador programs created by Anthropic highlights the increasing role of EdTech in shaping practical AI teaching.

Co-founder and early engineer Kalyan Archakam said that the club started as a small project that was motivated by curiosity and the need to go beyond the classroom instruction of AI learning. The community has also welcomed anthropic researchers to workshops and hosted a hackathon where over 100 people were invited to demonstrate how EdTech projects might help develop real-world skills in four to six months.

According to Vice President Apuroopa Kavikondala, the club is assisting students to reference AI casually to know how to put it to practical use. This has enabled Claude to be experimented with by its members in the name of productivity, social impact projects, and advanced prompt engineering to illustrate the practical usefulness of EdTech in student learning.

Bi-weekly sessions provide the leadership team with various experimentation, agentic AI, and tool-building meetings led by a few active ambassadors. Archakam states that the club was successful due to students' desire to learn, test, break, and rebuild, which embodies the spirit of innovation that has become a defining characteristic of contemporary EdTech circles.

The student leaders expressed worries that the Claude Builder Club is entering a new phase of campus-level innovation, as AI tools, collaborative learning, and EdTech acceleration can help students make a meaningful impact, both in and outside of the classroom, as the Claude Builder Club further expands.